Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKERin the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

METHODJST CHURCH BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Order for consideration, as amended, read.

To be considered upon Monday 11th October at Seven o'clock.

ANGLIAN WATER AUTHORITY BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday 14th October.

CROMARTY PETROLEUM ORDER CONFIMATION BILL (By Order)

Order for consideration read.

To be considered upon Tuesday 12th October.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Potatoes

Mr. Shepherd: asked the Minister of Agrirculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has plans to ensure that in the current year there will be an adequate supply of potatoes for the consumer.

Mr. David James: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is satisfied that in the current year there will be adequate supplies of potatoes for the consumer.

Mrs. Wise: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is satisfied with the current potato acreage.

The Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. E. S. Bishop): I am happy to say that 1976 crop plantings by registered producers in Great Britain are estimated at 195,000 hectares —or 482,000 acres—and thus have met the target area. Had growing conditions been normal, this area would have been sufficient to provide ample supplies of potatoes. However, although the crop was planted in ideal growing conditions, the hot, dry weather has affected growth in the main producing areas. It is too early yet to make a firm assessment of the overall supply position for the season, but we shall keep the situation under constant review.

Mr. Shepherd: Will the Minister accept that the steps which he has already taken with regard to imports and exports will be generally quite well accepted throughout the country, but will he recognise none the less that the poor yields in Northern Europe will cause tremendous demands on third countries and hence have the effect of forcing up prices? Second, will he recognise that the guaranteed price of £42 per ton which was set in March this year is likely to be inadequate to tempt growers into a full uptake of the acreage quota next year, and will he take steps accordingly now?

Mr. Bishop: I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern about the position


elsewhere. He will recall that at the time of grave shortage in this country last year we were helped to some extent by imports from overseas, including some from areas in which the supply was then not satisfactory. However, as the hon. Gentleman acknowledges, we are keeping on the present controls, banning the export of potatoes and lifting the ban on imports until the position can be reviewed. As regards the price settled following the annual review, I think that the fact that we have the acreage which we wanted is some indication of the confidence which the price levels have given.

Mrs. Wise: Will my hon. Friend keep closely in mind that potatoes are twice as important in the budgets of pensioners as they are in the budget of the general population, and that people in the low-income groups depend very much upon potatoes for their vitamin C intake? Further, will he take it that we on this side will at no stage hold him or his Department responsible for the weather, and we shall resist attempts which undoubtedly will be made by the Opposition to do just that? Finally, is it not a fact that the prices being paid to farmers were considerably uprated this year in order to meet their demands last year?

Mr. Bishop: I appreciate my hon. Friend's concern, especially regarding the price of potatoes in the past year and its effect on pensioners. We pointed out at that time that there were alternatives, and I recall saying that many of us would benefit from not eating too many potatoes. However, I recognise that pensioners have found that the cost of potatoes has borne rather heavily upon them. As regards the general position, some people may be inclined to think that we ought to plant many more potatoes. Perhaps I should say, in response to my hon. Friend's Question No. 24, that plantings by the registered producers in Great Britain are estimated to be 15,000 hectares greater than they were last year, and it is interesting to note that the downward trend in plantings in recent years has now been reversed.

Mr. Ward: Is my lion. Friend discussing with the Indian Government and their export agencies the possibility of further imports into this country from India? Is he particularly discussing with them the question of quality and

the condition in which those potatoes arrive in this country?

Mr. Bishop: I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of getting potatoes from alternative sources. He will recall that in the last year we have been looking for potato supplies from many places around the world. However, we must be quite sure that our plant health regulations are complied with. Plant health restrictions are very important to us. I do not wish to risk trouble for our home crop, which in recent years has been very important.

Agricultural Research

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he is taking to safeguard the coherence and unity of the United Kingdom agricultural research pattern in the event of devolution to Scotland and Wales.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Gavin Strang): The White Paper of last November stated that the main aspects of agriculture would be reserved. Agricultural research will continue to be co-ordinated on a United Kingdom basis.

Mr. Dalyell: Is the Scottish National Farmers' Union quite happy with the position?

Mr. Strang: Yes. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has discussed this whole area with the Scottish NFU and that it is reasonably satisfied.

Mr. Pym: Will the hon. Gentleman say something about the proposed public expenditure cut so far as it effects research and development in agriculture? Does he agree that that research is absolutely fundamental to the continuing progress and success of the agriculture industry?

Mr. Strang: I agree that agricultural research and development has a vital rôle to play in the future productivity of our industry. We are making every effort to see that the containment of expansion which has regrettably had to take place will be achieved in a way that minimises the disadvantage to the industry.

Poultry Meat (Hygiene Regulations)

Mr. MacGregor: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will report progress on consideration of the Poultry Meat (Hygiene) Regulations.

Mr. Strang: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) on 4th August. The Regulations were laid before the House yesterday.

Mr. MacGregor: Will the Minister accept that the changes on New York-dressed poultry will be welcomed with relief as going most of the way towards saving most of that industry? Is he aware that local authorities still face considerable difficulties over recruitment and training if they are to have establishments by January of next year? Will he therefore ensure the maximum flexibility in phasing in the scheme so that there will be minimum burdens on local authorities next year? Finally, will he say whether the costs of training will be met in part by the industry, or will there be a Government grant?

Mr. Strang: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's early remarks. I can also reassure him with regard to the question of flexibility. This is something that is being phased in gradually. We must remember that in the first instance it may be only the plants exporting to the Community which have an inspection service, and it will not be mandatory on any home market producers until August 1979. We are still considering the question of Government grants towards training.

Mr. Pym: Is the Minister aware that there is considerable relief that the trade in New York-dressed poultry can, after all, continue? The only regret here and in the industry is that the industry has been kept in a state of anxiety for so long. Will the Minister confirm that no cost, including that for the training of inspectors, will fall on local authorities, and will he also say that there will be a proper role for environmental health officers in this new scheme as well as for veterinary surgeons?

Mr. Strang: Yes, I can confirm that absolutely no cost will fall on local

authorities and ratepayers. I also confirm that there will be a rôle for environmental health officers. That is specifically written into the Regulations. I think the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that it was always the case that we would be making some concessions on New York-dressed poultry. Indeed, some of them were negotiated by us a very long time ago in Brussels. But I recognise that it is the further concession for dry-plucked poultry which is particularly important and has been welcomed by the industry and the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Roper: Will my hon. Friend accept the congratulations of those of us on the Government side of the House on having found a rational solution to this problem in the interests of small producers and consumers who prefer New York-dressed poultry? Will he give some assurance that this will be a permanent and not merely an interim solution?

Mr. Strang: The concession with regard to dry plucked is without time limit. I think that my hon. Friend, with his knowledge of EEC matters, will recognise that it is inevitable that the whole question of the directive will be reviewed in due course by the Community. But there is no time limit on the dry plucked.

Mr. Marten: How many officials will be required to implement this scheme?

Mr. Strang: When the hon. Gentleman refers to officials, I think he refers to poultry meat inspectors and veterinary surgeons. When the scheme is in full operation in August 1979, we estimate that in total there will be a demand for about 100 veterinary surgeon equivalents. I say "equivalents" because some authorities will use one only part-time while others will take one on full-time. There will be between 600 and 650 poultry meat inspectors. However, we should remember that this is not a net addition, because in practice some of the more advanced and progressive firms are already employing people privately. What it will mean is that, instead of their doing it, it will be done officially by proper local authority inspectors.

Mr. Hal Miller: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what will be the additional capital cost required to modify poultry processing


plants so that they conform to the Poultry Hygiene Regulations.

Mr. Strang: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) on 22nd March.

Mr. Miller: I admire the hon. Gentleman's dexterity in getting a Question planted yesterday about these Regulations. Will he assure the House that the period proposed for compliance—namely, until 15th August 1977—is adequate, bearing in mind the structural requirements of pigmeat producers? Will he also say what will be the cost of implementing these requirements and the percentage that will be borne by the consumer in the form of higher prices?

Mr. Strang: When the hon. Gentleman refers to pigmeat producers, I take him to be referring to poultry meat producers—

Mr. Miller: I was asking about the structural requirements for poultry—

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Strang: The structural requirements, as the hon. Gentleman said, should be met by August 1977, but it is our intention to be flexible. We recognise that we are not giving producers a lot of time. The hon. Gentleman will welcome the announcement made yesterday of aid under the Industry Act to assist in bringing premises up to proper hygienic standards.

Mr. Marten: As the Government are making expenditure cuts, is this not a classic example of where they should not spend money?

Mr. Strang: No, I could not disagree more with the hon. Gentleman. The British housewife is entitled to protection, and we are woefully behind Norway, Denmark and the United States in this area. We really must have proper hygienic standards. This is something we should have done a long time ago.

Mr. Pym: To what extent will it be possible to take advantage of FEOGA grants towards the capital cost referred to in the Question?

Mr. Strang: Because of the structural modifications to be made, the requirements will be eligible for assistance under

the Industry Act. Therefore, the producers will be able to apply for a FEOGA grant under the special projects scheme. I am hopeful that some producers will make successful applications.

Animals (Importation)

Mr. MacFarquhar: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what further steps he has taken to publicise British laws on the importation of animals in the continental Channel ports.

Mr. Strang: Through our embassies and consulates, and with the co-operation of the appropriate continental authorities, we have arranged for extensive publicity at continental ports, marinas, etc., warning travellers to Britain of our anti-rabies import controls and advising them to leave their pets behind.

Mr. MacFarquhar: I welcome my hon. Friend's statement, but would it not be worth while sending a member of his Department to inspect what has been done at these various ports and to see whether the notices are appropriately displayed? Would it not also be worth while for my hon. Friend to contact his opposite numbers on the Continent to see whether it would be possible to arrange for customs officers at Channel ports and elsewhere, on an informal basis, to warn all travellers to Britain with pets?

Mr. Strang: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I know of his deep interest in these matters. We have already sent a Ministry veterinary officer, who has made an extensive tour of the Dutch, Belgian and French coasts. We are getting very good co-operation indeed from the Governments of those countries on the Continent, and particularly from France. I mention France, of course, because of its proximity. We are making some progress in this matter, though there are no grounds for complacency.

Mr. Crouch: What is the cost of the publicity that the Government are placing in continental ports?

Mr. Strang: I should need advance notice of that question. However, in addition to leaflets, we have made a number of television films in the appropriate languages and these have been shown by continental television stations.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Will my hon. Friend say whether the extreme dangers of rabies have been emphasised? He may not realise that when thinking of bringing their dogs here many people abroad may say to themselves "My little Fido could not get rabies", without knowing that the dog might have taken a bone that had been left by a dog with rabies. Can a massive programme of warning be undertaken?

Mr. Strang: We launched a massive publicity exercise. There is no doubt that this was reflected in a great deal of recent Press publicity and in the higher fines that magistrates have been imposing—and, indeed, it has been reflected in the increased parliamentary interest in the matter. We take this matter very seriously indeed.

Fishing Limits

Mr. Skinner: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what further representations he intends to make to the EEC on the question of a 50-mile British-only fishing zone.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Fred Peart): The future of the common fisheries policy is one of the most urgent and important issues in the Community, and the Government will continue to press for arrangements which meet the needs of our fishing industry.

Mr. Skinner: That is a bit general. After three years of membership of the Common Market, in which those who are our enemies inside Europe have bled British workers white, does not my right hon. Friend consider it high time that the Common Market was told in no uncertain terms that it is time we were able to get at least this 50-mile fishing zone? Would my right hon. Friend also care to comment on the suggestion which has now been raised that the 200-mile zone that is being discussed will not be only a fishing zone and that there are those inside the Common Market who have their greedy eyes on North Sea oil and will interpret the fishing zone as an economic zone?

Mr. Peart: I think that that was a very general question as well. I cannot

accept this. I agree that it is important that we push forward with negotiations. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs has been conducting negotiations. Indeed, the Minister of State has already announced a broad policy to the House.

Mr. Watt: Does the Minister realise that the biggest problem facing the fishing industry is over-fishing by foreign boats? Will he tell the House the arrangements that are to be made to patrol and police the 50-mile limit—if that is the limit we get—and who will be in charge of the patrolling of the 200-mile economic zone?

Mr. Peart: These matters are under discussion and negotiation. I cannot reveal the Government's negotiating stance at this stage. Conservation and policing are important matters, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that they will have to be studied.

Mr. McNamara: My right hon. Friend will be aware that a Bill to extend fishing limits to 200 miles has been introduced in the Faroese Parliament. The Faroes are part of the EEC. Why are the Faroese able to take that unilateral action when we are unable to do so? What discussions has my right hon. Friend had with the Faroese and the Danes about the effect upon the British fishing industry, and on the Scottish industry in particular, of this proposal to push out to 200 miles?

Mr. Peart: I am aware of that. My hon. Friend must know about the Council decision from the Community on the 200-mile limit, and we are ready to take action on this.

Mr. Warren: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure us that he will come back from the negotiations with a minimum of a 12-mile limit available only for British fishermen off the South Coast? Otherwise those men will be on the dole.

Mr. Peart: I do not conduct negotiations in Europe. That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. He represents an important fishing constituency and is anxious to see that our interests are protected. I note carefully what the hon. Gentleman said.

Pigs

Mr. Hicks: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is satisfied with the state of the pig sector.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he is satisfied that the returns earned by pig producers are sufficient to pay for the costs of production.

Mr. Bishop: Pig producers have enjoyed a sustained period of firm prices with good profits and the national herd has been expanding. Prices fell sharply during the hot weather but are now showing signs of recovery. There is every prospect that they should improve during the rest of the year.

Mr. Hicks: Will the Minister confirm that since the publication of the Government's White Paper "Food from Our Own Resources" the United Kingdom production of pigmeat has fallen? Does he agree that action is required? Why will he not seek to give the pig sector a selective devaluation of the green pound or an adjustment of MCA payments?

Mr. Bishop: Price falls are normal at this time of year and they were more pronounced in June and July because of the hot weather. The Meat and Livestock Commission forecasts a return to firm price levels by the end of the year. In April last the census results showed an increase in the United Kingdom pig-breeding herd of about 4 per cent. compared with April 1975. Within these totals the number of gilts in pig increased over the same period by 37 per cent., from 97,000 to 133,000 head. It is estimated that the size of the herd may increase by a further 6 per cent. by the end of the year. This shows the market confidence. Indeed, a recent NFU memorandum published in July warned the industry about over-confidence in the pig sector.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the green pound. We have made clear on many occasions that we have to take into account the interests of the country as a whole as well as of the pig industry. Any changes will have to take account of the interests of the producer, the processor and the consumer. I believe that there is a case to be made for a more neutral

method of calculating MCA payments in this sector, and we are examining that possibility.

Mr. Speaker: May I ask for replies to be as reasonably short as supplementary questions?

Mr. Watkinson: Will my hon. Friend accept that the pig industry has suffered considerably at the hands of the Danish industry because of the subsidy that the Danish industry receives? Can anything be done to give our pig producers some advantage in this market?

Mr. Bishop: My right hon. Friend has met representatives of the pigmeat processing industry, and various suggestions are being pursued. I repeat that I think a case may be made for a more neutral method of calculating MCA payments in this sector. I note what my hon. Friend said about Denmark.

Mr. Winterton: Is the Minister aware that the British Pig Producers Federation and the NFU have produced records which show that the pig industry is making a loss? Will he secure an adjustment of the MCA payments to ensure that our industry is placed on a similar footing to the Dutch and Danish industries which are undermining our industry?

Mr. Bishop: I accept what the hon. Gentleman said, but I have explained the problems caused by a change in value of the green pound. My right hon. Friend has made four changes in the value of the green pound over the last two years. That shows that we are sensitive to this problem. Difficulties arise in taking action on the pigmeat sector alone. My right hon. Friend will be pursuing these matters in Brussels and elsewhere in the near future.

Mr. Ward: Will my hon. Friend have regard to the large increase in the cost of feeding stuff for pigs, particularly of soya-bean meal, and bear it in mind in his review of the bottom price?

Mr. Bishop: I can give that assurance.

Mr. Pym: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the pig breeders and processors are easily the hardest hit by the misaligned green pound? Does he not regard it as a serious matter that home producers take a much smaller share of the home market than formerly? Should not the aim of


Government policy be to increase the share of the home market enjoyed by home producers?

Mr. Bishop: We are pursuing the policy laid down in our White Paper. As I have said on many occasions, we bear in mind the adjustment of the green pound as and when required. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we are sensitive to the problems of the industry, which at present are having a far greater effect on processors than on producers. All these points are being taken into account.

Green Pound

Mr. Crouch: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the present discrepancy between the green pound and the£ sterling.

Mr. Peart: The gap between the two rates is 21 per cent., giving a calculated monetary compensatory amount percentage of 19·5 for the current week.

Mr. Crouch: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the difference between United Kingdom and EEC prices is getting a little too wide? Does he not feel that the time is coming when our own farmers and producers should not be put at such a disadvantage against their continental competitors?

Mr. Peart: That point has been put to me many times, and I have considered the matter very carefully. I have made changes, and the Community has been pressing me to make further changes. We shall examine the matter.

Mr. Cryer: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the British people have been making considerable sacrifices under the illusion that wages are the sole source of inflation? Does he agree that any further devaluation of the green pound would lead to increases in the cost of living, and that we should resist any further alteration in favour of the farming community so that at least we can obtain some benefit from this crazy organisation called the EEC and the common agricultural policy?

Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend knows that I try to represent the food industry and the consumer. I would remind my hon. Friend that I am not only Minister of Agriculture but also have responsibilities

in regard to fisheries and food. I recognise that I have responsibilities to see that prices are not excessive, but I must strike a fair balance. I have already said that I shall carefully examine the matter, and it may well be discussed at future Council meetings.

Mr. Fairbairn: Will the Minister appreciate that among the British workers mentioned by the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) the hardest worker is the farm worker? Is it not unfair for them to have to pay out in one currency and to receive back a currency worth only three-quarters of it when prices are arranged on a basis of parity? Will he pursue a policy to ensure that there is a regular review of the value of the green pound?

Mr. Peart: I do not accept that there needs to be an automatic arrangement. This topic is discussed at most Council meetings and will inevitably come up at the next meeting.

Mr. Pym: Does the Minister agree that by allowing this misalignment to be as wide he has made it more difficult to bring the matter into parity? Does he agree that by the end of next year we shall be close to parity, so that British producers will be able to do business on fair competitive terms with their European partners? Will he not soon make adjustments to bring the green pound closer to parity?

Mr. Peart: I note what the right hon. Gentleman says, and I have made several moves in that direction. I must point out that no similar move was made by a Conservative Government.

Cane Sugar Refining

Mr. Spearing: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he intends to make a statement on the future organisation of the cane sugar refining industry.

Mr. John Evans: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he intends to make a statement on the future of the cane sugar refining industry.

Mr. Peart: I would refer my hon. Friends to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Scotland Exchange (Mr. Parry) yesterday.

Mr. Spearing: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many people will be relieved that no redundancies will occur until at least after next March? In view, however, of the fact that sugar beet production is sure to be down this year on last year because of the 30 per cent. reduction, and since additional cane supplies are expected to rise by over 1·2 million tons, does not my right hon. Friend agree that if we cannot obtain a permanent increase we should at least seek a short-term increase in terms of the EEC allotment, which would have the effect of reducing unemployment following the rationalisation plans shortly to be announced?

Mr. Peart: It is too early yet to forecast the state of our own sugar beet crop, and I appreciate that there are weather problems. The results from the samples taken by the British Sugar Corporation will not be known until later in the month and, therefore, one cannot be specific. The subject of supplies from elsewhere is not an easy matter. Nevertheless we signed the Lomé Convention, and supplies are guaranteed from our traditional suppliers into our market. We are carefully watching the situation.

Mr. Wiggin: The House will know that yesterday the Minister referred to the takeover of Manbre and Garton, and two matters of substantial interest now arise. After such a merger, it is true to say that 57 per cent. of sweeteners in the industry will be in single hands. Therefore, will the right hon. Gentleman refer the matter to the Monopolies Commission, and will he consider what proposals should be put forward for the re-employment of workers and say whether these proposals are likely to be delayed?

Mr. Peart: We are well aware of the problem of unemployment. I have received representations from the trade unions, many of whose members I have met. The Government are anxious to protect the workers as far as we can. It would be wrong for me to comment on the merger, but discussions are now taking place. There is a dispute between the two firms, and they have made representations to me. I have seen both sides, but it would be wrong for me to speculate about the outcome.

Mr. Ogden: I should like to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for calling me. You have a generous and forgiving nature. Is my right hon. Friend aware that no Minister has been more accessible to hon. Members interested in these matters than he has? Will he confirm that yesterday's statement confers six months' job security on workers? Will he try to make an interim statement as early as possible and allow time for a debate on his recent statement?

Mr. Peart: I made my statement in reply to a Written Question. It was a long statement which I thought would assist hon. Members. We are in close contact with employers and employees, and when necessary I shall inform the House of the situation.

Mr. Pym: In his answer yesterday the Minister referred to unification and rationalisation. Does that imply that there can be other grounds? If so, what are they? Secondly, on the current bid, will he expand on what he said? Is he referring to the organisation of the industry following a successful bid? When will he make a further statement?

Mr. Peart: I cannot say when I shall make a statement. I shall do so as soon as possible. I must judge what will be in the interests of those concerned. I have no other proposals to make. We must see how the matter goes.

Departmental Staff

Mr. Greville Janner: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many men and how many women are employed in his Department.

Mr. Peart: On 1st July 1976 the numbers of men and women employed full-time in my Department were 9,218 and 5,808 respectively. Additionally, 91 men and 784 women were employed part-time.

Mr. Janner: Do men and women employed in the Department have a right to retire at the same age? If so, is this not a right that should be extended to all workers in agriculture, bearing in mind that so many agricultural manual workers suffer from back ailments but still have to work until they are 65 years of age?

Mr. Peart: My hon. and learned Friend seeks to raise a wide question. I am satisfied that the recruiting of staff is fair and


consistent. There is no question of discrimination between the sexes.

Rabies

Mr. Torney: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is satisfied, from recent contact with local authorities about contingency plans in the event of an outbreak of rabies, that they have taken sufficient account of his detailed guidance.

Mr. Strang: Although the guidelines were issued as recently as 17th June, the reports reaching me indicate that local authorities are actively engaged in preparing their detailed contingency plans to suit local circumstances.

Mr. Torney: In view of the serious situation in regard to rabies, does my hon. Friend believe that in view of the cuts in local expenditure these matters can safely be left to local authorities? Does he not agree that it would be a much better idea if the Minister of Agriculture were to raise at Cabinet level the question of co-ordinating the subject of rabies and the control of stray dogs, because at present these matters fall within the discretion of four separate Departments? Does he not agree that this situation cannot be allowed to continue?

Mr. Strang: I am happy to inform my hon. Friend that the Government take a very close interest in this subject. If there were to be a rabies outbreak, the Minister of Agriculture would have overall control. On the subject of stray dogs, I do not think that there is any alternative to leaving the responsibility in the hands of local authorities.

Mr. Dalyell: Are the Government sure that precautions are as alert at the less likely ports, such as Grangemouth and Leith, as they are at Channel ports?

Mr. Strang: We make every effort to see that all ports are on the alert. Customs officers have been well briefed on this important issue. There is no doubt about the high level of public awareness on this subject throughout the country. There is great determination to keep rabies out.

Ms. Colquhoun: Does my hon. Friend accept that although the Government are

taking a great interest in this matter many vets are of the opinion that they are not taking the proper action? Does he further accept that the advice he is receiving from specialist advisers is not necessarily the advice which he would receive from vets, who are terrified of an outbreak of rabies and are certain that if it should occur the Government will be in serious difficulties?

Mr. Strang: I cannot accept that many vets are unhappy about our policy, although I dare say that my hon. Friend may have met one or two of them. The British Veterinary Association, the Royal College of Surgeons and the World Health Organisation are all supporting our policy in this respect.

Dr. Glyn: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that his Department and the medical authorities are working sufficiently closely together? There are two sides to this matter—stopping the disease and catching the animals, and curing the patients. It is important that sufficient notification should be given to the medical profession.

Mr. Strang: I am satisfied on all counts. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government internally have devoted a great deal of attention to this question recently.

Common Agricultural Policy

Mr. Marten: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress has been made in the last month in restructuring the CAP.

Mr. Gow: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proposals he has for reform of the CAP.

Mr. Peart: I would refer the hon. Members to the reply given to the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) on 23rd July. I shall continue to seek improvements in the milk sector and for other commodities.

Mr. Marten: It is clear that the Common Market is increasingly putting up the price of food to the British people. Therefore, can the right hon. Gentleman confirm his previous estimate that if the green pound were revalued properly it would put up the price of food by 5 or 6 per cent.? If that is so, does it not


make it more urgent that the common agricultural policy should be restructured in the interests of the British housewife?

Mr. Peart: I have sought and achieved improvements in certain directions. The beef premium system is to be discussed by the Council and there could well be a Community scheme based on the principles which we advocate. I also want the efficient farm to be one of the criteria when we have discussions on price, and there must be price restraint. However, the price of some commodities in Europe is below the world price. The hon. Gentleman should not be too critical.

Mr. William Hamilton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Socialist Group in the European Parliament has been working very hard to produce a new agricultural policy and that it is now about to be published? The amended version is due largely to the activities of Labour Members. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that when it is published it will be given wide publicity?

Mr. Peart: Certainly. I know that my hon. Friends who are Members of the European Parliament have been working hard. Naturally, I shall look carefully at their proposals. I congratulate them on taking the initiative in this direction.

Mr. Gow: Since we joined the Community, has the difference in value between the green pound and the £ sterling ever been greater than it is today?

Mr. Peart: I answered a previous Question on that matter. If I were to answer again, I should simply be repeating what I said earlier.

Fishing Industry

Mr. Cormack: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he has considered plans for the nationalisation of the fishing industry.

Mr. Pearl: No, Sir.

Mr. Cormack: Will the right hon. Gentleman take it from me as a Grimsbarian that I am delighted with that answer? Is he aware, however, that the fishing industry faces acute problems? What plans have the Government in mind to ease them?

Mr. Peart: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says. I made a major state-

ment on this matter after the settlement with Iceland. We are still having discussions with the employers and the trade unions in the industry. I shall be meeting their representatives tomorrow.

Mr. McNamara: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the fishing industry could do worse under nationalisation than it is doing under private ownership? Hypocritical and misleading statements have been put out by the British Trawlers Federation about the Government's present negotiating position regarding an exclusive fishing zone. What we need in the fishing industry is proper labour relations and decasualisation.

Mr. Peart: I accept that we need proper labour relations, and decasualisation is one of the matters I am discussing with the unions concerned.

Mr. Pym: When will the Minister make a statement in public that he is absolutely opposed to nationalisation of the land as well as to nationalisation of the fishing industry?

Mr. Peart: I have already made a statement that I have no proposals to nationalise land. The right hon. Gentleman knows that.

LEICESTERSHIRE

Mr. Greville Janner: asked the Prime Minister whether he will pay an official visit to Leicestershire.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): I have at present no plans to do so.

Mr. Janner: When my right hon. Friend visits Leicestershire, will he take the opportunity to denounce all those irresponsible fringe groups and individuals who seek to make political capital out of racial disharmony? Will he pay special attention to the Fascist National Front, so many of whose top national leaders are not only former members of the Nazi and Fascist Parties but have criminal records of violence, as well as to all other extremists who seek to interfere with the peace and basic prosperity of Leicester and other cities like it?

The Prime Minister: I know that my hon. and learned Friend, among others, is leading a campaign in Leicester to ensure that racial harmony shall prevail. I


am glad to learn that there has been little disturbance there. The Government —and I hope that this is the case on a much wider basis—are totally opposed to the National Front, which seeks to stimulate and inflame intolerance between the races and basks in the publicity which arises from a general state of disorder. I assure my hon. and learned Friend that on all occasions we shall seek to warn the public and to lead them as far away as we can from the direction in which the National Front would take them.

Mr. Aitken: Is the Prime Minister disturbed by today's news that the former Chief Constable of Leicestershire, Sir Robert Mark, has announced his impending resignation as Metropolitan Police Commissioner because of his strong feelings about the Police Bill? Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it is something of a national tragedy that arguably the greatest police chief since Peel should feel obliged to resign because the Government are determined to spend £1 million of taxpayers' money on making it easier to complain against the police?

The Prime Minister: I have a very high admiration for Sir Robert Mark. In my earlier manifestation as Home Secretary I had some responsibility for his advancement. I have always valued his opinions on many matters. But the Police Bill has been discussed and decided by the House and, however eminent may be Sir Robert Mark, whose advance retirement by three months or whatever it is will be a matter of regret, the House decides these matters. I have always taken the view that the police have a right to special protection because of the ease with which complaints can be made against them, but I do not believe that when the legislation is in operation they will find that their position has been weakened.

Mr. Watkinson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is incumbent on all parliamentarians to give the strongest possible lead in improving race relations in this country? Would it not be of the greatest assistance if the Leader of the Opposition were to make such a statement?

The Prime Minister: Naturally, I leave that to the Leader of the Opposition, but I have no reason to believe that she would disagree with what I have said this afternoon.

Mr. Cormack: If the Prime Minister will not go to Leicestershire, will he consider going to Staffordshire and telling parents there how much he believes in their right to choose their children's education? Will he also tell them that the independent schools are in no danger as long as he holds high office?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that I shall be discussing Staffordshire when I visit Leicestershire.

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE REVIEW

Mr. Tebbit: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the cooperation between Ministers in relation to the effect of the Government's review of public expenditure.

The Prime Minister: Yes.

Mr. Tebbit: Since the Chancellor of the Exchequer has given his estimate of unemployment for the end of 1979 as 3 per cent.—

Mr. Russell Kerr: Come on, Uriah!

Mr. Tebbit: —will the Prime Minister say whether the Secretary of State for Employment has given his estimate of the peak figure of unemployment and when it is likely to be reached, and will he then tell us what those figures are?

The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman wishes to question my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, no doubt he will table the necessary Question.
With regard to the co-ordination of our review of public expenditure, there is agreement, but on the general question of employment my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made it clear more than once that in order to get to this figure of 3 per cent. British industry will need to grow at the rate of something like 8½ per cent. a year. That is very substantial, but it is the basis upon which both sides of the NEDC agreed yesterday that we should proceed, and I am glad to see that that is so. This is not an impossibility. It is beyond what the country has done in recent years, but we should not set our sights too low. This is one reason why we took decisions on public expenditure which


are very difficult and trying now. For the first time, there has been created a situation in which we have taken action in advance of the need. I hope that British industry will respond to it.

Mr. MacFarquhar: On the general question of Government co-ordination, although the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection has reaffirmed that nationalised industries that make excessive profits can be forced to reduce their prices, the Secretary of State for Industry has indicated that there is no case for the Post Office reducing its prices although it made twice the budgeted profit last year. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a case for the Post Office paying attention to the Early-Day Motion, signed by at least 80 Labour Members, calling upon the Post Office to reduce some of its prices to the consumer?

The Prime Minister: I have been into this matter. There was an adventitious profit made by the Post Office, and in normal circumstances there would be a case for reducing prices. On the other hand, that would pull against another aspect of Government policy, which is to reduce the public sector borrowing requirement. The Post Office will now be more able to finance its needs, especially for telecommunications, out of these profits. Balancing the two together, it seemed to us as a Government that it was better for the Post Office to keep these profits and to finance itself in this way than to add to our borrowing requirement.

Mr. Nelson: Does the Prime Minister consider it realistic of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to talk about another four years of wage restraint when, at the same time, the Government intend to spend more than ever before on such matters as the nationalisation of industry and land? What form does the right hon. Gentleman imagine that the wage restraint will take when the announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer amounts to a refinancing of our existing public expenditure rather than a realistic cut?

The Prime Minister: Part of the cuts were refinancing from the private sector. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would welcome that in his professional capacity. There is no

reason why we should not seek to make this transfer from public borrowing to private savings in this sense.
As for the levels of incomes and wages over the next three or four years, this will be a difficult period for us. But I believe that if we can hold the country on a steady course from now until 1980, there will be great opportunities open to us. I have seen, for example, that trade union leaders have said that they want a return to collective bargaining. But they have also said—and I repeat it because I am in line with them on it—that there can be no wages explosion without setting back all the gains that we have made so painfully in the past 18 months.

Mr. Lipton: Will my right hon. Friend do his best to ensure that his natural optimism is not always shadowed by the natural and perpetual misery of Opposition Members who decry all that we are trying to do?

The Prime Minister: I am not much influenced by Question Time in the House of Commons, I must say. I have now, after four months, come to see the game that the Opposition play.

Mrs. Thatcher: Sometimes the Opposition just try to find out the facts, I am afraid not very successfully. Earlier, the Prime Minister referred to certain economic forecasts. Since one of the most important of them is the maximum number of unemployed—and he must have informed himself about that—will he tell the House what he expects to be the maximum number of unemployed during next year?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he expected unemployment to begin to come down by the end of the year. I cannot improve on that forecast. In any event, I have come without the figures. The original Question asked me whether I was satisfied with the co-ordination between Ministers—

Mr. Tebbit: One of them is concerned with unemployment.

The Prime Minister: Sometimes the hon. Gentleman is not nearly as nice as he sounds. We must monitor progress on this matter quarter by quarter, but my hope and expectation is that the


Chancellor's figure will prove right and that the figure will start to move down towards the end of the year.

Mrs. Thatcher: But the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not give any figures. He refused to give figures when cross-examined by both sides of the House. I should have thought that the Prime Minister would automatically have informed himself about one of the main figures, which is the maximum number of unemployed expected during the next year. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that he has not done so?

The Prime Minister: Yes, I am saying that. I find that these forecasts often cancel each other out. However, as the right hon. Lady has raised the matter, I shall look into what lain Macleod said when he was Minister of Labour—some hon. Members were not here at the time —about publishing forecasts on unemployment, and perhaps later we can return to the question whether forecasts should be published. If the right hon. Lady is still not satisfied, she or someone else can table Questions to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I beg the right hon. Lady not to take too much notice of forecasts. So many of them have been proved wrong during the past six months, including, for example, the forecast from the National Economic Institute which said that our gross domestic product would come down during the first half of this year. There are very many other examples. I suggest that we stick to what is known rather than to what is forecast.

BRETHERTON

Mr. George Rodgers: Q3.Mr. George Rodgersasked the Prime Minister if he has any plans to visit Bretherton.

The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so.

Mr. Rodgers: I am sorry that my right hon. Friend will not be able to call in at Bretherton during his journey to Lancashire in the near future. However, is he aware that Bretherton is a small Lancashire village which has a very severe housing problem and that, for example, there is no local authority provision for elderly people? In view of the regrettable Government policy to cut

back on overall house building and to concentrate resources on areas of stress, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that villages as well as larger conurbations have serious housing problems and that stress is not confined to the cities?

The Prime Minister: I take my hon. Friend's point. What is being done in housing is to resile from a policy of an open-ended responsibility for house building. This could not be borne on the National Exchequer as it stood, and was part of our public expenditure cutback. But we are not proposing to go below the programmes that were expected and for which we budgeted. This means that resources will be more limited. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction will consult local authorities so that areas of stress, which include not only inner cities, can take into account the kind of area like Bretherton, which my hon. Friend represents.

Mr. Montgomery: Since, apparently, the Prime Minister will not be visiting Bretherton, will he consider coming to Altrincham, where I hope that he will be prepared to meet one of my constituents, who, after 40 years' loyal service with British Rail, is now threatened with dismissal because he has refused, on religious grounds, to join a union? Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that when he first became Prime Minister he spoke on television about preserving our existing freedoms? Will he say how that is compatible with this sort of trade union tyranny?

The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman wants a considered reply to his question perhaps he will put it down on the Order Paper.

Mr. Skinner: In view of the fact that my right hon. Friend is not going to Bretherton, or the other place, I wonder whether he would go to Saudi Arabia, which is mentioned in Question No. 7 standing in my name. In view of the fact that about 12 months ago the Attorney-General indicated that Scotland Yard was trying to get into Saudi Arabia in order to interview a co-director of one of the Poulson subsidiaries, of which the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling) was also a co-director, so that the loose ends of this affair could be tied up, will he use his


power and influence to see whether this matter can finally be resolved?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend has illustrated the absurd nature of some of the Questions that are put down. That is why I do not take some of them seriously. It is ridiculous, when I am asked about a visit to Bretherton, that it should then be extended either to the constituency of the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Montgomery) or to Saudi Arabia, or anywhere else throughout the world. If they are sensible and reasonable Questions I shall deal with them, but not otherwise.

SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS (ABUSES)

Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether you could rule on the matter of the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat), who has been making allegations about people drawing unemployment benefit and social security—allegations that so far have been totally unproved and are totally unjustified. You will be aware that during the night my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) initiated a debate on social security scroungers, but neither the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South nor the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Brotherton), who have both been going around producing scare stories, was present for that debate, and neither of them is here at this moment—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he cannot use a point of order to make attacks on other Members. That I discourage from both sides of the House.

Several hon. Members: rose—

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Speaker: Business Statement—Mrs. Thatcher.

Mrs. Thatcher: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business for the first week after the recess?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): The business for the first week after the Adjournment will be as follows:

MONDAY 11TH OCTOBER—Debate on the Green Paper on a proposed new highway code.

Motion on the Counter-Inflation (Price Code) Order.

The Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed Private Business for consideration at seven o'clock.

TUESDAY 12TH OCTOBER and WEDNESDAY 13TH OCTOBER—Remaining stages of the Health Services Bill.

THURSDAY 14TH OCTOBER—Report and Third Reading of the Electricity (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Bill and of the Maplin Development Authority (Dissolution) Bill [Lords].

Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Armed Forces Bill.

Resumed debate on Second Reading of the Public Lending Right Bill [Lords].

Remaining stages of the Road Traffic (Seat Belts) Bill.

FRIDAY 15TH OCTOBER—Remaining stages of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill.

Second Reading of the Endangered Species (Import and Export) Bill [Lords].

Mrs. Thatcher: The Leader of the House must be aware that the number of Government Bills and Orders on the Order Paper at this stage of the Session is unprecedented and that we have not had time to debate a host of things such as foreign affairs. There are also seven official Opposition Prayers which we have not had time to take. Would the Leader of the House say what he has in mind in respect of these matters when we return?

Mr. Foot: We shall certainly do our best to accommodate as many of these matters as we can, as we always do. We have made very good progress with the business of the House, despite the prophecies that things would go wrong. I am sure that we shall make further good progress when we return in October.

Mr. Jay: Has my right hon. Friend noticed that a Prayer has been placed on the Order Paper against the Government's Poultry Meat Order, and may we have an assurance that there will be adequate time for this order to be debated as soon as we return from the recess?

Mr. Foot: I am sure that is a matter that the House will wish to discuss.

Mr. Tebbit: Will the Leader of the House say why a Private Member's Bill, namely, the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill, has been given Government backing and priority over another Private Member's Bill—the Licensing (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill? Is this not a breach of the long-established custom of this House? Might I add that I am not particularly in favour of either of these two Bills and that I am not therefore making a case in respect of either but merely drawing attention to the way in which the Government behave towards Private Members' legislation.

Mr. Foot: I am sure the hon. Gentleman was raising the matter with his usual objectivity and impartiality. I would only say to him that there have been precedents in the not so distant past when a Government have given assistance to a Private Member's Bill. Many representations have been made to me that we should assist with this Bill and we are providing time for the House to discuss it on the Friday when we return. The Government have not given preference over some other Bill but an opportunity has been given for the Bill to be discussed.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Clement Freud. Mr. Andrew Faulds.

Mr. Faulds: May I simply pay the Leader of the House—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I apologise to both hon. Gentlemen.

Mr. Faulds: I take that in the spirit in which it was not given. May I simply thank the Leader of the House for having kept his word about bringing back the Public Lending Right Bill in the hangover part of our Session at the end of the holidays?

Mr. Ronald Bell: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the Road Traffic (Seat Belts) Bill is a controversial measure and to put it on at the end of a long stream of Bills, which means that it must be discussed in the early morning, is most inappropriate?

Mr. Foot: I hope that we shall reach the Bill earlier than that. We certainly think that the other items which have

been put down for that Thursday need not take a great deal of time. I hope that there will be adequate time to discuss the Bill and, indeed, that the House will be prepared to reach a decision that night.

Mr. Dalyell: On Monday 11th October does the opposed Private Business relate to the consideration of the Cromarty Petroleum Order Confirmation Bill? If it does, will the Leader of the House recognise that besides the Scottish Office it is important that we have a Treasury Minister to explain precisely what the Treasury obligations are if the Bill is passed, and particularly whether there will be an automatic grant of between £30 million and £40 million of public money? May we have an opinion from an energy Minister whether it is true that refining capacity in this country is working at 60 per cent. and is likely to do so until the 1980s? In the absence of that kind of information it will be very difficult to reach a sensible judgment in respect of the Bill.

Mr. Foot: I am quite sure that many of my hon. Friends will be required to deal with my hon. Friend and others, but I will certainly see that the information is passed to them so that they will take it into account.

Sir David Renton: With regard to the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill on 15th October, are we to understand that the Government themselves are taking on this Bill and, in effect, making it a Government Bill and putting on the Whips on that occasion?

Mr. Foot: We are giving an opportunity for the House to decide upon this matter and I would have thought, in view of the history of the Bill, and what has been said about it by hon. Members in all parts of the House, that this is a civilised way in which to proceed.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Would my right hon. Friend consult his right hon. Friend the Chief Whip, and everyone else whom it may be desirable to consult, with a view to ensuring that when the Public Lending Right Bill comes back for its completion of the Second Reading there are enough hon. Members in the House to make sure that the debate reaches its conclusion on that occasion?

Mr. Foot: I think that my hon. Friend, having been given due notice of the continuance of the Bill, would agree that


we have made quite a lot of progress with the Bill already. There has been a lot of time for discussion and I hope that we shall reach a conclusion and that there will be enough hon. Members to ensure that it goes through.

Mr. Marten: May I raise a question about today's business and relate it to the first week when we come back? On the Order Paper, items Nos. 3 and 4 are two instruments to be "decided forthwith". Should they not normally be taken immediately after this point of time in our proceedings and not at the end of the day? Should they not therefore be moved to October and then taken immediately, because we do not want to decide these things forthwith perhaps very late at night?

Mr. Foot: I think they are down on the Order Paper in the normal way and we must proceed with them on the basis that they are there.

Mr. Christopher Price: Has my right hon. Friend seen the Government's rather tendentious reply to the Select Committee on Cyprus yesterday? During the hangover period could he find just a little time in which this important matter, on which there are differences of opinion —70 hon. Members have signed an Early-Day Motion supporting the Select Committee—could be debated by the House?

[That this House gives a general welcome to the report of the Select Committee on Cyprus; considers it has highlighted some major failings in foreign policy; and believes that Great Britain, as a guarantor power and fellow member of the' Commonwealth, has a special responsibility to work for a free and independent Cyprus.]

Mr. Foot: I would not call it a hangover period. I would rather call it a spillover period—and there may be other names applied to it. There may be an opportunity for a discussion of foreign affairs during that period. I am not certain yet, but I should have thought that, if so, that would be the opportunity for this matter to be raised.

Mr. Carlisle: Following on the question of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) and my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit), would

the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the principle of selecting one Private Member's Bill and giving it preference and Government time over others is a thoroughly bad principle, even if it is one which has been adopted in the past? For example, the Licensing (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill is the first Order of Private Member's Bills at the moment. Why should not that be given time rather than the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill?

Mr. Foot: I understand the concern which some hon. Members have expressed on this question. As a general rule, the Government should not intervene in this way. But when hon. Members consider the discussions which had taken place on the Bill and when they hear the representations which have been made about it, I believe that they will agree that it is a perfectly proper thing to do. It has been done before. Some of the Bills which have later become fully accepted by the country and have contributed to the general welfare of our society have been subject to this procedure, and we are applying the same principle again.

Mrs. Wise: Will my right hon. Friend accept that the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill affects the safety of women, a matter which has been inadequately discussed, whereas the Licensing (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill has already been discussed for a very long time? I am sure that women will applaud my right hon. Friend for his action in this matter.

Mr. Foot: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, naturally enough, but I also hope that hon. Members, whatever criticism they may make of the Government or of me in making this arrangement, will judge the Bill itself on its merits. I believe that the more the House applies its mind to the Bill and its merits, the speedier will he its passage.

Mr. Raison: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that there will be early debates on three important reports or consultative documents to do with the Department of the Environment —namely, on water, transport and local government finance? Is he aware that there is particular resentment about the delay in having a debate on transport?

Mr. Foot: I am sure that no one is more eager to have those debates than my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Shore): Hear, hear.

Mr. Foot: Of course we should like to have debates on all those matters. Whether we can have them during the period in October I cannot be sure. Transport is certainly a very strong candidate for a debate, and I know that we are committed to debates at some stage on the other matters as well.

Mr. Ioan Evans: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in the early hours of this morning, in the debate on the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, a request was made by both Front Bench spokesmen for an early debate on the Lonrho Report? Since this affair was once referred to by the former Conservative Prime Minister as the unacceptable face of capitalism, and since the mask has been removed, should not the House soon debate this subject so that it may fully understand the implications?

Mr. Foot: Although I was not present, I understand that there was a very interesting debate on this subject a few hours ago. Whether everyone who took part in that debate would wish to have a further debate on the matter I am not sure, but certainly we should be happy that there should be some further opportunity eventually to discuss the matter. However, I certainly cannot promise that it will happen immediately we come back.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Would the right hon. Gentleman look again at what he has three times said today about the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill? Would he not at least agree that it would be fair, as the Licensing (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill is down as first on the list, that he should put the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill second on the list, as it was not a named Bill for that day? In this way he might succeed in having the Bill judged on its merits, whereas if he tried to foist the Bill on the House in advance of the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), who had the courtesy to name a date, it might not be judged on its merits.

Mr. Foot: I hope that no hon. Member will say in advance of discussion of that Bill on that Friday that he is not prepared to discuss it on its merits. That

would be disrespectful to the House of Commons. I therefore hope that the matter will be discussed on its merits, whatever the criticisms may be about the way in which we have arranged it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mrs. Wise) said, I thought that what we were doing was meeting the wishes certainly of most of my hon. Friends and, I should have thought, of many hon. Members opposite for another such arrangement.

Mr. Cryer: I think that you will recall, Mr. Speaker, that when I raised the subject earlier, you said that the subject of International News Services and its representations on behalf of Bristol Channel Ship Repairers were to be referred to an appropriate Committee. I wonder whether my right hon. Friend has considered the matter and whether he would care to make a comment about it, particularly as the Bill involved is going through the House of Lords. We would all hope that the scenes of intimidation and pressure that we witnessed beforehand will not be repeated in the Upper House.

Mr. Foot: Following my hon. Friend's question, I have made inquiries. We now consider that the most appropriate Committee to consider this matter is the Services Committee, which was one of the suggestions made. I will take steps to ensure that it is considered at a very early date, particularly in view of my hon. Friend's suggestion about the menace to the incorruptibility of the other place.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: When we come back would the right hon. Gentleman look at this problem and make a statement on it. It arose during Prime Minister's Questions today. It has on a number of occasions been said that Oppositions and Back Benchers are dissatisfied with the answers of Ministers and Prime Ministers, but today is the first time that a Prime Minister has said that he is dissatisfied with his own Question Time and that he did not take it seriously. The difficulty, which has arisen many times in the past, is that Back Benchers just cannot put straightforward Questions to the Prime Minister. Will he now discuss with the Prime Minister the possibility of improving the kind of Questions that we put to his right hon. Friend so


as to prevent this practice and the putting of secondary questions afterwards?

Mr. Foot: I am sure that the Prime Minister would be grateful for any improvement in the Questions put to him but the form in which those Questions are put has been discussed a number of times by the Select Committee on Procedure. If the present Committee would wish to look at the matter afresh and devise some other way in which we might avoid the kind of all-embracing Questions which have to be put down so as to enable certain matters to be raised, it might be helpful. But the Committee has looked at this on previous occasions and has not been able to propose any better arrangement than we have now.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I propose to allow three more questions from each side and then there is a statement.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Has my right hon. Friend seen Early-Day Motion No. 563 entitled "Cars for the Disabled" in my name and the names of 70 of my hon. Friends and one Liberal Member? Is he aware of the grave concern of the disabled about these matters and can he give us any hope that in the not-too-distant future we can have a debate?

[That this House whilst appreciating what the Under-Secretary of State for Social Services has done for disabled people, is concerned at the Government's decision to phase out invalid tricycles without replacing them with another vehicle, as this may compel disabled drivers to give up their jobs; and requests the Government seriously to consider the continued supply of cars to the physically handicapped, thus providing them with assistance which is realistic.]

Mr. Foot: I cannot promise a debate in the week we come back, but I will consider the representations of my hon. Friend and of my hon. Friends who signed that motion.

Mr. Watt: Will the right hon. Gentleman recognise that there is considerable disquiet in the fishing industry that he has not yet found time to have a debate on that matter? Is he aware that by the time we come back it is likely that the

fishing limits will have been decided by our EEC partners? Can he assure the House that there will be an early opportunity to debate those decisions?

Mr. Foot: If any agreements are reached on the subject in the negotiations, there will obviously be a report to the House and the possibility of discussion. Many representations have already been made to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, and many deputations have visited him to present views on the subject, so I am sure that he is aware of the opinions held in many parts of the House.

Mr. Greville Janner: Does my right hon. Friend expect the ACAS codes on disciplinary procedures and the disclosure of information to be laid before the House, if not in the first week, before the end of this Session?

Mr. Foot: I hope before the end of the Session, but I prefer to verify the matter.

Mr. McCrindle: If we are to squeeze in debates on various White Papers and other topics as well as the tail end of various Bills during the spillover of the Session, is the Leader of the House yet in a position to estimate when the Session will end?

Mr. Foot: I should not like to give an exact date, but, as I have said, we are making reasonable progress. We have quite a lot of work to do when we come back on 11th October. We have some of the matters which I have already mentioned for the first week, and we have some Bills to conclude, but we have already made better progress than some people forecast, and I am sure that that happy progress will continue.

Mr. Corbett: As the promoter of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill, I thank my right hon. Friend for providing time to enable the House to come to a conclusion on it. Is he aware that the Bill has all-party support in the House, and would it not be in the best traditions of the House if we were to consider it on its merits, not on the basis of bias?

Mr. Foot: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I believe that when the Bill comes forward on that Friday the whole House will discuss it on its merits.

Mr. Cormack: Will the Leader of the House arrange for the report by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on financing the arts to be printed and debated in the spillover period?

Mr. Foot: I shall have to look at that. I cannot make any promises.

LONDON DOCKLANDS (REDEVELOPMENT)

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Shore): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement on Docklands redevelopment.
The Docklands Joint Committee approved its strategic plan for the redevelopment of the London Docklands on 19th July. This large area in the heart of London has been losing population and employment for a number of years. As everyone recognises, too much of the area presents a sorry spectacle of abandonment, inactivity and decay. Everyone recognises the need to bring new life to the area.
I pay a very warm tribute to the five constituent authorities and the GLC which have come together in the Docklands Joint Committee, resolved their natural differences of priority and objectives, and devised a scheme for the regeneration of the area. Their strategy defines both longterm objectives over the next 20 years or so and a phased programme of redevelopment.
Basic to the whole strategy is the acquisition and assembly of land essential for redevelopment. The community land scheme which Parliament has enacted in the last year has radically improved the ability of local authorities to tackle this task at reasonable cost. Already substantial areas of land are being developed or have been approved for housing and industrial purposes. This includes a major proposal for a merchandise mart in the Surrey Docks, the start of an extensive land drainage scheme at Beckton, and agreed proposals for the redevelopment of a substantial area of London docks.
The Docklands Joint Committee has applied to me for a joint land board to be set up under the Community Land Act; and the PLA, in consultation with my Department, has been giving urgent con-

sideration to sustaining its operations in the up-river docks.
The strategy's major proposals are in the fields of housing, jobs and transport. Its proposals for housing development and rehabilitation will help to ease the serious deficiencies in East London and more widely. I welcome the start which the housing authorities have already made with house building in the Docklands area, and their readiness to consider new forms of tenure. All the Docklands boroughs are in areas of severe housing need, and I have made clear that we shall use the controls on local authority house building programmes to give priority to areas of stress where housing needs are urgent.
The strategy is right to point up the special employment problems faced by the Docklands boroughs, though the specific employment objectives in the strategic plan appear to be a bit ambitious in some respects. The strategy realistically draws attention to the part which local authorities can play in slowing down the decline of industrial employment and in encouraging existing employers to remain in the area.
The Government intend to help employment in three ways. First, positive steps are being taken by the Manpower Services Commission to expand retraining facilities in the area. Secondly, the Government accept that there must be some relaxation of the present statutory restriction on the advertising of London's commercial and industrial advantages by local authorities in respect of Docklands and some other areas in London which are experiencing particularly serious employment problems. Thirdly, without putting it in competition with the assisted areas, the Government intend that for industrial development certificate purposes the designated Docklands area should, wherever possible, have the same priority as the new and expanded towns in South-Eastern England.
I have not yet completed my consideration of the important transport infrastructure proposals. Major projects such as the River Line or the larger road developments are expensive, and, of course, we have to contain expenditure within the resources available. Relatively inexpensive but valuable improvements to passenger services by bus and rail, to the local road network and to freight


facilities are given high priority in the Docklands strategy. It is for the GLC to decide how these can best be realised within the limits of its overall transport expenditure.
The local authorities, the people in the area and the Government have all rejected the idea of a new town corporation to carry out the development of Docklands. This is a job for the local authorities, and current arrangements already ensure that local authority expenditure on housing, transport and other services is supported, on average as to about two-thirds, by the Exchequer. Where specific grants are applicable—for instance, for some derelict land clearance projects—I am ready to consider proposals from the local authorities; and we have already approved proposals to acquire some 220 acres of land in the present financial year under the community land scheme.
As the House knows, the Government are already examining the problem of urban areas which need regeneration on a large scale. We shall be studying the allocation of Exchequer grants for current expenditure in this context. Moreover, some degree of discrimination needs to be considered in the distribution of local authority capital borrowing, with the pressing needs of such areas as Dock-lands having a particular claim to priority. We must all acknowledge present financial stringencies and the fact that any shift of resources must be offset against expenditure in other areas. But the Government recognise the need to revive the Docklands area.
The strategy will provide a new sense of direction and purpose, a new starting point. We cannot accept continuing decay and decline so near the heart of our great capital city. The Government stand by the commitment they made last year, and I gladly endorse it. Within the limits of the resources at our disposal, we shall help the redevelopment of Docklands to go forward, and with all speed.

Mr. Raison: The Opposition fully accept that Docklands must not rot, and the problem presents a great challenge to us all, but will the Secretary of State recognise that his statement gives us very little practical encouragement and contains few practical details? Is there any

resource commitment by the central Government to the redevelopment of Dock-lands? It is clear that there is no commitment to the important Fleet Line scheme, but will the community land proposals have any impact on public expenditure in the next few years? If land is to be bought, presumably that will come out of public funds. What is the position in that respect?
Is the Secretary of State convinced that the present joint committee is capable of the single-mindedness, drive and expertise needed for this enormous job? Further, is he convinced that the industrial attractions which he has presented will be strong enough? Does the right hon. Gentleman fully accept the need for mixed tenure in these areas, and can he give us any idea of the time scale for the redevelopment scheme?

Mr. Shore: The hon. Gentleman has asked me a battery of questions, but I shall do my best to answer them as quickly as I can. I do not believe that London and the country generally will accept his slightly depressing view of my statement. I think that it will be seen as giving positive encouragement to the Docklands area. It is the first time encouragement has been given in the House.
On the question of resource commitment, I advise the hon. Gentleman to read again what was in my statement, in which I said what was available in terms of the RSG, TSG and housing subsidies, which cover on average 66⅔ per cent. of all expenditures under these main programmes. I indicated where additional grants would be considered which were relevant to Docklands' needs.
Nobody can be certain about the strength of the industrial incentives, but one of the main recommendations in the GLC and boroughs' joint report on Docklands, the hon. Gentlemtn will recall, was precisely that Docklands should be given the same status in terms of IDCs as new and expanding towns in the South-East. I am glad to say that we have been able to implement that recommendation.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked me whether I thought that the Docklands Joint Committee was strong enough to carry out the development, which will be huge. I believe that this development of


Docklands must remain under democratic control. That is why I am in favour of the strategic control of the area remaining under the Joint Committee which represents the five boroughs and the GLC, but it is entirely open to the committee to make any proposal which it thinks would help to speed the work that lies ahead.

Mr. Mikardo: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his statement will be warmly welcomed in the five boroughs covered by the Docklands joint scheme and that the council and people of those boroughs will be grateful to him for his share in persuading some of his right hon. Friends—more than one Department is affected—to make some changes in policy which have been urged on them for a long time and which they have been resisting for a long time?
Is my right hon. Friend also aware that worthwhile progress—that is, progress fast enough to achieve something before the area dies—will require the commitment of not insubstantial resources, which are beyond the capacity of the GLC and the five boroughs? Will he continue the good work he has done up to now by standing up and fighting his corner against a Chancellor of the Exchequer who at times seems to be just a shade inflexible about public expenditure?

Mr. Shore: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks about my efforts in respect of Docklands. I think that there will be a welcome for the statement in London, particularly in the East End. I accept that a new initiative is needed. I think that the proposals will give the encouragement which has so far been lacking. I think that, for example, the ability to advertise the advantages and facilities of East London, which has been denied by statute ever since 1936 in respect of London, is in itself a significant change. In addition, a big difference will be made by the positive steering to the East End, along with new towns, of those firms which will not go to development areas—because we must have national policy in mind, and this is no challenge to the development areas.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that transport is

one of the central features of the whole strategy? Would it not have been better if he had made this statement yesterday, when we could have debated it for three-and-a-half hours? London Members missed the right hon. Gentleman very much in our debate at two o'clock this morning. We could then perhaps have shown what a mouse of a document this statement is.
Have we a commitment that legislative time will be found to remove the bar on advertising? Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman spoke about industrial development certificates having the same sort of basis as for the rest of South-East England "wherever possible". What does "wherever possible" mean, other than a qualification which would render the whole thing meaningless?

Mr. Shore: That certainly is not the intention. The phrase "wherever possible" simply reflects that with all IDCs a number of questions must be asked, and are asked, about the particular circumstances of firms and the suitability of the areas to which they go. That is the meaning of the qualification.
Of course, I should have been very happy had I been able to make my statement earlier, but it has been something of a rush to reach agreement. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the DJC approved its draft final strategy only on 19th July. I do not think that we have done too badly in making a response within a fortnight.

Mr. Christopher Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that when we speak of the East End we are also talking about South-East London? His statement about advertising and IDCs will be very welcome to an area in which employment opportunities were already becoming worse than in some of the areas which are traditionally thought of as development areas. Is he aware that there is now an urgent need for the transport announcement and that he should make an announcement about the transport options as soon as possible?

Mr. Shore: I am acutely aware of the increase in unemployment not only on the North bank of East London but in South-East London. The transport proposal is a difficult question to decide on its merits. Apart from that, it is a


substantial problem in relation to resources. We have recently received a further major submission from the GLC. I shall be considering it urgently.

Mr. Dykes: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, particularly after the newspaper leak this morning, which may have come from his own Department, his statement is an anti-climax and will be depressing to those who expected something more dramatic, apart from the peroration?
Would it not be a good idea for the right hon. Gentleman to make amends by saying a bit more about Government money beyond the battery of assistance he mentioned, including the conventional housing subsidy? More than that will undoubtedly be needed. Will the right hon. Gentleman consider with the Treasury in due course the possibility of a separate, specific Docklands development loan, which would rank equally with normal Government gilt-edged stocks? What will he do about the possibility of having, even in modest amounts, some private capital involved in this vast scheme?

Mr. Shore: I mentioned not only the general sources of finance that are available but certain specific grants and loans that are available and no doubt will be applied for by the Docklands authorities. Beyond that, of course we wish to attract industrial development into Docklands. I have considerable confidence that there will be an inflow of private capital into the area. The Docklands Joint Committee looks forward to that.
As for an anti-climax, all I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that, whatever else I may do, I do not write the front page of theEvening Standard.

Mr. Spearing: My right hon. Friend will receive great thanks from my constituency, because no less than half the designated area is in Newham, South, and because of the difficulties of local government finance. Will my right hon. Friend draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer that, whilst IDCs are welcome, new towns receive IDCs and cash? As the population of East Anglia will increase by 25 per cent. in the next few years, would it not be a good thing to divert

a good deal of the expansion to Dock-lands, without additional Government expenditure? Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the Docklands Joint Committee can now develop the same sort of organisaton as Peterborough and Milton Keynes have, with the same sort of financial support for developing industry from scratch in new areas?

Mr. Shore: My hon. Friend, as he rightly reminded the House, has a special interest in this area as about half of it is in the borough of Newham. As for new towns in relation to the Docklands area, we are now seeking an equivalent status in terms of IDCs between Dock-lands and the new towns. I do not think it entirely fair to say that the new towns have cash whereas East London does not. This makes up, to some extent, for the fact that the new towns, for the very reason that they are new towns, cannot receive the sort of sums that are available to established communities from rate support grant and other means.
My hon. Friend's general point is a very serious one—namely, the balance that should be struck between new and expanding towns and the problems of renewal of our inner cities, which goes wider than the issue of Docklands itself.
My hon. Friend points to the fact that the new towns have a special organisation that helps them, particularly in the planning and building of industrial estates. I do not wish to say more on that, as it would seem to be open to the Docklands Joint Committee, if it were so minded, to agree to put forward a proposal of that kind that might operate across the boroughs as a whole in terms of industrial development.

Mr. Arthur Jones: In the light of the right hon. Gentleman's statement I think I detected some of the recommendations made by the Environment Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee, which I welcome. I also welcome the fact that the right hon. Gentleman, in speaking on behalf of the Government, has referred to the vital necessity of restoring the dereliction in some of our great city centres. London Docklands is an outstanding example near at hand. The right hon. Gentleman will recognise the conflicting objectives that exist, to some extent, within the five London boroughs and the GLC.
If central Government funds are to be found to any significant extent, I hope that he will ensure that the Government have a say in the ultimate character of the redevelopment. That is why I was disappointed when he put the entire emphasis on housing needs, jobs and transport. In terms of a contribution to central London, there is a great deal more that the redevelopment of this vast area of 5,000 acres and more of open space can make not only to enhance the centre of London but by providing facilities for the existing communities. I hope that he will be able to give an assurance in that respect.

Mr. Shore: The hon. Gentleman speaks with the authority of having chaired the Environment Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee which considered the Docklands issue just over a year ago. If I may say so, I thought that it produced a useful report. I also thank the hon. Gentleman for approaching the matter in such a refreshing and non-partisan manner. All of us who are concerned about London will welcome any progress that can be made at a time of great difficulty to bring new life and prosperity to this great area of our city.
As for the hon. Gentleman's point about the influence that we may have on the development, some of the members of the Docklands Joint Committee are nominated by me. Therefore, there is contact between the Department and those who have strategic control of the Docklands development. I assure the hon. Gentleman that although I have concentrated in my statement, for reasons of brevity, on housing, transport and industry, it is a fact that the Docklands Joint Report goes very much wider. It properly considers amenity, the use of the river and many other factors that I have not been able to include.

Mr. Jay: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he has announced very welcome and sensible decisions? Is he also aware that even in the present financial circumstances there is an extremely strong case for the extension of the Fleet Line to these areas?

Mr. Shore: I believe that there is a great necessity to improve transport in the Docklands area. We have some difficult judgments to make, as has the GLC, on priorities—namely, communications

that would be basically helpful to the people of the East End in their movements throughout London, communications that would be especially helpful to the location of industry, and communications that are certainly required by the people who are now living in Docklands. It is to reach a judgment between those three matters that I think we need a further study. I am sure that the GLC and others will also be studying them.

Mr. Speed: In the light of the statement, will the right hon. Gentleman give an indication of how he sees both the short-term and long-term implications for the London overspill agreements which, as he will know, are now not very popular either with the receiving authorities or with the Greater London Council? On the industrial development certificate point, if the Secretary of State's optimism is fulfilled it means that there will be a fairly major effect on the overspill programme.

Mr. Shore: That is a point that must be borne in mind. We shall have to give consideration to the general balance between the relative requirements of the renewal of our inner cities and the programmes of the new towns and expanding towns. However, it would be premature for me to venture at this stage an opinion as to the effect of this proposal on London overspill.

Mr. Edward Lyons: I appreciate that there are many good things in the statement, but will my right hon. Friend understand that the substantial change in policy involved in the removal of the ban on advertising for new industry by London boroughs will cause dismay in the regions? Is he aware that in Yorkshire and Humberside anxieties were expressed about what was this possible move, a move that has now come to fruition? On behalf of the regions, I ask my right hon. Friend to reconsider that part of the statement which so alters regional policy by allowing London boroughs to advertise for new industry.

Mr. Shore: No, Sir. I disagree with my hon. and learned Friend. Only if hon. Members were to misunderstand what I have said would there be any likelihood of causing dismay in the regions. I have emphasised that the priority of the assisted areas remains untouched. I am concerned about the priority that is followed


—for example, if a firm for one reason or another cannot or will not go to an assisted area. It will then be positively steered to a new town or, for the first time, East London.

Mr. Raison: The Secretary of State must have an idea of the public expenditure consequences that will flow from his announcement, especially as we read in theDaily Telegraph that he is to be the next Chancellor of the Exchequer. What increases in public expenditure will appear in the next White Paper as a result of his announcement?

Mr. Shore: On the 19th July we received the joint committee's amendment to the Docklands strategy. That included some revised spending proposals for what it saw as the first phase—namely, the first five years. It would not be possible for me at this stage to try to spell that out in terms of programmes over the next PESC period.

ADJOURNMENT (SUMMER)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House at its rising to-morrow do adjourn till Monday 11th October.—[Mr. Shape.]

Mr. Speaker: I have not selected either of the amendments.

4.19 p.m.

Mr. James Molyneaux: Those who represent constituencies in Great Britain can perhaps be forgiven for feeling on occasions that we on the Northern Ireland Bench observe some sort of ritual on these occasions when we have debates on the recess. It may seem that we indulge in a mood of despondency when we list the misfortunes that may befall us and our constituents during a recess.
However, today the position is very different. It was transformed at an earlier stage in our proceedings—namely, at a very early hour this morning. It was when the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland gave a grave forecast of what was likely to be in store for the people of Northern Ireland for the next two or three weeks. It is for this reason, not because we hold any particular private opinions, that I wish to draw the attention of the House and the Government to the situation likely to develop when the House is in recess.
Ministers of the Crown are not usually given to forecasting increased difficulties in the areas for which their Departments are responsible. Therefore, without being in any way alarmist, I suggest that the House must pay heed to the advice and the views of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland expressed in the House this morning, because he will have formed his judgment on the basis of information of necessity not available to the rest of us.
We are not encouraged by such information as we have in our possession—information which consists, for example, of the record of events and current observations. From the Government's own statements we learn that in practically every aspect of the campaign —the shootings, the bombings, the weight of explosive used, and the amount of fire damage—has been on just about twice the scale of the equivalent period in 1975.
It will be noted with very great regret by the House that the number of deaths is already running at twice the 1975 figure, and unfortunately looks like heading for something like the record figure of 1972.
The official information gives the death rate for the first six months of this year and confirms the fears of the Secretary of State. The official figures state that in January, 47 people died, in February, 27, in March, 18, in April, 20, in May, 26, and in June, 37. It is that upward trend that gives cause for understandable concern.
It will not have escaped the notice of the Secretary of State that the weight of the attack has now shifted from South Armagh to the area known as South Londonderry. That is the area west of Lough Neagh and running north to the Atlantic. At least it would appear that the terrorist base has shifted. Just as really determined action by the Government early this year in South Armagh led to improvement, so I believe that determined action now in central Ulster and west Ulster would produce the same effect.
The new Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary has set a very good example by appearing in person in the danger areas, sometimes immediately after an attack and often when an element of danger still existed. I am quite sure that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland himself will take advantage of the lull in our verbal battles here in the House to sec for himself what requires to be done in that area of Northern Ireland and, what may be more important, to give confidence to the security forces and to the population in what has virtually now become a front line sector.
Listening earlier today to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I detected a contradiction which is worrying us all. He appeared to say that the security forces needed and required the co-operation of the entire community if they were to succeed in obtaining the information that would enable them to identify the terrorists. But a little later he said that the security forces were well aware of the identity of the terrorists but lacked the evidence required to ensure effective prosecution in the courts.
It is this latter aspect that must concern the Government and, indeed, all of

us, because we must ask whether there is substance in the widely held belief—it is held on this side of the water as well as in Northern Ireland—that the law as it stands is somewhat inadequate. Does the law, therefore, require to be strengthened and, if so, what steps will be taken in the near future in that connection?
Certainly it is very difficult for people who day after day meet terrorist attacks to understand why more severe sentences should be awarded to people who have, for example, received stolen goods than are awarded to and imposed upon people who commit terrorist actions. Quite clearly, the Secretary of State and his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General must give that question serious consideration. It is fair to face up to what one would do and how one would answer the question if one were placed in the position of the Secretary of State.
In recent days I have been criticised for suggesting that we ought to go over from the defence to the attack. I envisaged not the unleashing of armoured divisions but rather a change in mental attitudes, because that is the really important thing. We have seen in recent days—the seaside resort of Portrush was an example—how the terrorists can very quickly adapt and switch their tactics to meet practically any defensive measures that can be devised.
I said earlier that the Secretary of State had admitted that many of the master minds were known to the authorities. It surely makes sense that they should somehow or other be eliminated at source and that we should not depend for success on, for example, sealing off town centres and making life a virtual hell for the unfortunate town or city, or that we should sit and wait for the terrorists to take some action and then try to devise a counter action. To all of us it makes sense, now that we have been assured in the House that the security forces know the identity of these evil men, that it is the task of Her Majesty's Government to round them up and put them safely away where they cannot carry out their evil work any longer.
To do this the security forces must be convinced that they have the backing of Parliament and, what is more important,


they need to be convinced that they will be loyally supported by Her Majesty's Government and by all parties here in this House if on occasion they make mistakes. As we know, mistakes are always made when people engage in warlike operations. I am convinced, however, that such a positive approach would do much to transform completely the entire security situation in Northern Ireland.
Finally, in case the Leader of the House and his colleagues are in any doubt, let me assure Her Majesty's Government that they in turn will, unless I am very much mistaken, have the support of all parts of this House, even when, through excessive zeal, they make occasional mistakes and as a result are faced with criticisms from ill-disposed persons. The Leader of the House will, I think, concede that we on this Bench have not been backward in supporting Her Majesty's Government's actions and policies, which we regarded as being in the national interest and in the interests of the citizens of the United Kingdom who live in Northern Ireland.

4.29 p.m.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: It is not my intention to detain the House long, and I apologise to the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) if I do not follow the tenor of his speech. It is not that I thought the speech was unimportant, but, just as he spoke for his constituency and area interests, I must speak for mine and suggest that there is at least one reason why the House should not immediately adjourn. But perhaps when I have finished my speech that reason will have disappeared.
The House will be aware that Her Majesty's Government are at the present moment conducting negotiations for British fishing limits, zones and areas and that this has been necessitated as a result of our membership of the Common Market and the general policy of nations to extend their fishing limits to 200 miles. —I am not at the moment quarrelling about what the Government have to negotiate.
I want to deal with some misleading, dishonest and hypocritical advertising that is being put out by the fishing industry, its representatives and its organisations about the Government's

present negotiating stance. For example. in Fishing News of 23rd July the headline is
Fish: The big British give-away",
and the article says:
Inshore and deep sea fishing organisations have dug deep into their pockets to launch a £35,000 national newspaper advertising campaign this week. The basis of the campaign is built around the fact that our Government is about to give away our right to catch our own fish'
Involved in this last desperate bid to alert the public to the dangers of the weak line being taken by the Government in their negotiations with the EEC are the British and Scottish Trawlers Federations, the Scottish Fishermen's Association and the Fisheries Organisation Society.
The leader in that issue of the paper said:
The expensive advertising campaign being mounted by sections of the fishing industry in the national press might be dismissed by some as a gimmick. But the point being made is an important one: ALL OUR VAST FISH RESOURCES ARE BEING HANDED OVER TO EUROPE ON A PLATE.
The truth is that all our vast resources were given away when we joined the Common Market.
The implication is that the Government are arguing from a position of strength and giving away our fish. The fact is that the Government are negotiating from a position of supreme weakness and that any concession we can get is a bonus. The fishing authorities and organisations know the real position. They were told it, and they raised not one voice in protest when we signed the treaty to join the Common Market. They did not complain then. The terms were there setting out the right to fish up to our shores after the period of derogation early in 1981. The Tory spokesman who negotiated those proposals told me that the derogation lasted only until 1981.
We are in the situation that the fishing industry is putting out a big lie because it failed completely to acknowledge the difficulties with which it was faced as a result of our joining the Common Market and refused to take part in any sort of educative campaign either at the time of the Treaty of Accession or the referendum to alert its members to the real implications. The real implications are that anything we can get is a bonus.
I make one exception to that statement and it is that the inshore men,


particularly in Scotland, were aware of this problem but the big men, the trawlers' federation and its spokesmen, did nothing about it. They were complacent, and now that the Common Market chickens are coming home to roost with fish in their mouths—if I may mix my metaphors a bit more—they are screaming, or shouting, or cackling about what has happened to them, and they are giving the lie to their own members and, more importantly, to my constituents that there is something that the Government can do other than what they are doing now, and that is trying to fight for the rights of our fishermen. It does not come well from representatives of the trawler owners and others to spend this sum of £35,000 at a time of public expenditure cuts. They would do better to donate the money to the widows of fishermen rather than use it to tell this lie.
However, that does not deal completely with the picture, because we have a situation in which the Tory Party and its representatives are joining in this campaign and making all sorts of claims for what the Government should be able to achieve. Yet they were the people who negotiated the treaty, and my constituents should be made aware of that. They should be made aware, too, of the fact that the chairman of the Conservative fisheries committee at that time, after a bit of huffing and puffing, said he was satisfied with all the arrangements that were made for the fishing industry under the original Treaty of Accession. Therefore, we are in the situation that it little behoves Conservative Members to attack the Government.
However, I am entitled to attack the Government, because I voted against the Treaty of Accession. I did not think that fishing was originaly covered or protected. I worked against the referendum for joining the Common Market, and I am sorry that it is my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House who has to reply to this debate because he, too, voted against it.
The Government have before them the example of the Faroes, which yesterday introduced into their Parliament a Bill to extend their limits to 200 miles. Incidentally, there will be some overlapping

in Icelandic waters from which we have been pushed out. The interesting thing about the Faroes is that they are subjects of Denmark. Denmark, too, is a Common Market country, but it has general suzerainty over the islands.
If the Faroes and Denmark, which has a special relationship with the EEC, can extend their limits as they have chosen to do, I suggest that when the Foreign Secretary and the Minister of State next go to see their counterparts in the EEC they should say to them not that if we cannot come to a joint agreement we shall extend our limits, but that we shall extend or limits anyway and pass the legislation, and then negotiate the situation with the other members of the EEC. It is true that we have to agree our swapping arrangements with Iceland, Norway and the Russians in terms of our fishing fleets and we cannot do it until we have firm limits.
Had I not been fortunate enough to catch your eye in this debate, Mr. Speaker, I should have had to vote against the Adjournment motion, because I should not have been able to explain to my constituents how they were being hoodwinked by the trawler owners about the Government's position. I should not have been able to tell my constituents how I think the Government ought to deal with the present situation. But, having taken part in the debate, and knowing that my right hon. Friend, with his fresh approach to this problem, will accept what I have said and support my strictures upon the trawler owners, I shall withdraw my opposition to the motion, and I know that that at least will please my wife.

4.39 p.m.

Mrs. Lynda Chalker: I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate, because what I have to explain is the serious state of staffing in our already crumbling National Health Service. Perhaps the House should not adjourn until the Secretary of State for Social Services has managed to resolve the dispute that is causing grave problems and serious worry in hospitals all over the country. This industrial action need never have occurred, and I shall explain why. I do not believe that industrial action is the way in which to resolve disputes between employer and employee, but I cannot be surprised,


after the last eight months of duality and vacillation that has gone on, that this has occurred.
I should, perhaps, spell out the situation that exists in our hospitals today. First, there are no fewer than seven regions where junior doctors are working a 40-hour flexible week, taking in emergencies only and dealing only with patients who are already there. Those regions are Mersey, the North-West, East Anglia, North-West Thames, Yorkshire, South-East Thames and the West Midlands. The Oxford region is taking emergencies only. The South-West Thames and the South-Western regions are refusing to cover for colleagues who are on study or annual leave, or who are sick.
That means that two-thirds of the regions in England and Wales are not carrying out medical care as we understand it. The West Midlands region is pressing hard for lightning walk-outs without warning. Junior doctors are now talking openly about mass resignations. Before we adjourn we have a responsibility to do all that we can to ensure that the problem is resolved.
I must remind the House how we have arrived at this state of affairs. The junior doctors are in angry despair to know how to resolve the Government'svolte face over their contracts of employment. There have been three years of negotiation to change the basis of junior doctors' remuneration. In years gone by junior doctors worked long hours for paltry sums in the belief that patients' needs were paramount and that they would be fairly rewarded once they became consultants. But they no longer have any faith in the system. They no longer believe that they will be rewarded as consultants and they have every reason to doubt the present Government in the battle to achieve a just salary for the work to which they are dedicated.
The basis of that deep-seated doubt is that the Department of Health and Social Security now denies agreements established in negotiation meetings between the Department and the Junior Hospital Staffs Committee of the British Medical Association. The Department denies that there was ever any agreement that the full salary should be paid throughout the year. That is very worrying, because since July 1975, when the Government's

White Paper "The Attack on Inflation" was published, discussions have taken place between officials in the full knowledge of the Remuneration, Charges and Grants Act which we passed last July and in full knowledge of the Pay Code. Yet in all the negotiations there was never a hint that the actual agreements being reached were later to be said to be outside the Pay Code
The whole basis of the new contract was that junior doctors would agree on contract to work an average total number of hours each week. In return, the doctors would be paid salaries based on that figure. The salary would be payable throughout the year, and, like any other salary, would include the period of annual leave. The other bases of the new contract were to establish job descriptions, proper contracts of employment and a sensible system for standing in for colleagues on leave or who were otherwise inacapacitated. 'That was the full understanding of the 13th December meeting between the Department of Health and Social Security and the Junior Hospital Staffs Committee of the BMA.
From that time, up to and including the meeting of 22nd April this year, every meeting was on the understanding that the new contract would he calculated over 52 weeks on the basis of average hours worked. It was the system which would be fairly comparable to the old system of paying extra duty allowances to doctors working very long hours. The units of medical time—the new calculating method—would be apportioned over the year to calculate the annual salary.
The Government have denied this. After that meeting on 22nd April they said that for doctors the pay policy would not permit the payment of an annual salary based on average hours worked over the year but that holiday and discretionary study leave would be paid only at basic rates. That was the early May intimation that the Government had turned round on the agreement which they had made.
I contrast that with the statement by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) when she told me during Question Time:
I assure the hon. Lady that we have finalised our discussions with the Hospital junior staffs committee about the implementation circular, and there is no difficulty about


that. It went out immediately the hospital juniors had approved it. It is a matter now of getting contracts offered locally within the context of the policy we have agreed with them."—[Official Report, 23rd March 1976; Vol. 908. c. 181–2.]
The Minister of State said in reply to the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon):
the completion of individual contracts depends on agreement locally between the junior doctors and their employing authority. … Health authorities were asked to make every effort to institute payments by the end of April, but I appreciate that there may be cases where this has not been possible."— [Official Report, 30th April 1976; Vol. 910, c. 204.]
It is little wonder that the JHSC believed that everything was in order and that they were proceeding hand in hand with the Government towards a successful new contract.
Until the beginning of May, the Department and the JHSC always intended that the contract should be based on a basic salary plus the contractual overtime—the A and B units of UMT.
It is strange that in May the Government could turn to the staffs committee and say "No—these units of medical time—the contractual overtime—do not form part of your annual salary" when in that month agreements were drawn up with NUPE ancillary workers in West Midlands that their overtime on an annual basis would be included in their annual salary.
There is a host of evidence to support what I say. In the fifth report of the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration published in September, paragraph 21, dealing with the future salary scales, says:
As the basic salary scales will be the same as the current salary scales, they must therefore be regarded in future as taking into account part of the long hours spent by junior hospital doctors and dentists on duty beyond the normal weekly hours, and the supplements as recognising the remainder. … We consider it important that the salary scales should be at an appropriate level for those doctors and dentists whose working week is limited to between 40 and 44 hours on duty and their ship to the remuneration of those whose weekly hours of duty are very much longer".
The same matter was recognised in the letter agreed between the Department and the junior hospital doctors at the time of the October 1975 ballot because that covering letter stated:

The new contract contains contractual payments for additional work; these continue during holidays and study leave and can easily be used to get a mortgage".
There are other documents including DS 378/75 of 30th December 1975, which made it clear that this was the basis of remuneration which had been agreed. Document HC (PC) 76/4, which was the pay circular sent out in March this year by the Department to the employing authorities, said in paragraph 3:
it is clear that the salary is calculated from the average pre-contracted weekly hours and paid throughout the year without deductions for leave.
On the Department's own admission, we also know that 60 per cent. of the health authorities employing 80 per cent. of the doctors have already contracted with their junior doctors on the basis of a full annual salary. This was in response to many telephone calls which the Department received, later denied receiving and then agreed that it had received.
Indeed, the administrators have said to many of us that between March and May of this year the advice by telephone from the Department over the clarification of that HC (PC) 76/4 confirmed that full UMTs were to be paid throughout the year. I can also call in evidence paragraph 4 of Appendix 1 of the Fifth Report from the Expenditure Committee for the 1975–76 Session. That made it clear that the monthly payments are to be paid based on a pre-contracted average number of UMTs each week. No mention is made of deduction for leave. If the Department always intended those deductions to be made, it seems a quite extraordinary omission from its written evidence to the Expenditure Committee.
We are practically at the beginning of the recess. Throughout the past eight months we have had document after document leading the two sides further along the path to agreement. Suddenly there has been this complete overturning of all that has been agreed. It is more particularly worrying because at this moment, the day before we are due to go into recess, there have still been no minutes published of the meeting of negotiation on 22nd April between the Hospital Junior Staffs Committee and the officials of the DHSS.
Three months later, as the House adjourns for the Summer Recess, the Department has at no time put on paper what has happened. During April of this year the Secretary of State remarked in the House that the cost of additional work over 40 hours would be about £28 million but that the junior doctors were opting for the more onerous pattern of working and being available for work. These junior doctors are not afraid to work. They are not afraid of long hours. They ask one thing, and that is that they should be fairly remunerated for their work. All of the discussions, all of the meetings that have been held, make it clear that there was good faith right up until 22nd April, and even two days later, when suddenly the Government reneged on what they had agreed.
There is a great irony in this, because it is necessary that junior hospital doctors, should have study leave in the same way as we have, in recent weeks, been trying to introduce a Bill to provide for vocational training for general practitioners. It is necessary to keep them up to the mark in the service that they give to the patients in our hospitals. Yet the Government are saying that if the junior doctors go to study so as to provide a better service, they will not be paid on their regular basis of payment. Believe me, if this were a trade union in the TUC sense it would never have stood for that action.
You might ask, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with the recess coming up, what steps I took to do something about the obvious difficulties that were arising. Let me tell you that in mid-May the junior doctors first asked for a meeting with the Secretary of State. In some desperation, towards the end of May I was asked what I might do to assist. Various notes were passed between myself and the Secretary of State and eventually, on 2nd July, a meeting of one hour was arranged between the negotiators for the Junior Hospital Staffs Committee and the Secretary of State. We had another meeting lasting three-and-a-half hours on 5th July.
Eventually, the problem was recognised as being most serious and the Prime Minister spent over an hour and a half meeting the committee, together with the Secretary of State. That was on 26th July. Despite all of these efforts, we now have a serious state of affairs. Those

who suffer are not Members of this House but patients who require hospital treatment. That is a crazy situation and I submit that we should not be adjourning until the Leader of the House has used his influence to resolve this unholy muddle and crazy situation which the Secretary of State has allowed to go on over the last four months, to the detriment of hospital care and the patients who need that care in our country.

4.55 p.m.

Mr. Brian Sedgemore: I am sure that we all want to go on holiday, but it seems important that we should not adjourn until we have had an opportunity to discuss whether this Parliament is the surpreme inquest of the nation and whether it is a debating forum where debates can be held, statutes proposed, discussed and enacted without fear or favour. You might say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the answer is obvious. It is not obvious to Mr. Rowland of Lonrho.
My wife, for her sins, is a barrister. She is used to dealing with unsavoury characters and unpleasant people—

Mr. Hugh Dykes: She is married to one.

Mr. Sedgemore: I am a barrister, too.
She has also worked as a secretary and assistant to a number of directors of large companies in this country, so she is not taken aback by the business ethic. Even so, she was shaken when, last Friday evening, she received a telephone call from Mr. "Tiny" Rowland of Lonrho in which he threatened to do all he could to "get" or "do" me because of what I had said about Lonrho the previous day in Parliament in the Standing Committee considering the Companies (No. 2) Bill [Lords] during which I moved New Clause 17, which was designed to tighten up the law on the disclosure of financial and beneficial interests by directors to their workers, shareholders and other board members.
Yes, I will repeat that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Mr. Rowland threatened that he would do all he could to "get" me or "do" me because he objected to what I said in Parliament. The sequence of events is that on Thursday 29th July I moved New Clause 17 in Standing Committee C considering the Companies (No.


2) Bill [Lords]. At 10 o'clock the following evening the telephone rang at my home at Studley Road when I was out. Within two hours of that telephone call my wife made extensive notes, which I now use for the purpose of this debate, concerning the contents of that telephone call.
The speaker first refused to give his name and said that it was urgent that he speak to me because he was going to Ghana or Pakistan very quickly. My wife said that I would not be back until 12 o'clock or 1 o'clock. The speaker still refused to give his name and my wife asked him whether he was a member of the National Front—we have been receiving anonymous telephone calls. To that inquiry the speaker replied "Indeed, no, I abhor them". Then my wife asked, "What is it you want to say?" Eventually the person said that he was "Rowland of Lonrho"—just like that. He did not say that he was Mr. Rowland of Lonrho, but just "Rowland of Lonrho", in the way one might say "I am the Empress of India". He then said that he would seek to change the law of privilege —and that is his right if he wishes to do so—because of what I had said in Committee the previous day.
The caller went on to say that he would also sue me because of what I had said in Committee the previous day. Not content with that, he went on to say that he would do all he could to "get" me or "do" me, because of what I had said the previous day. So that there should be no mistake about what he was saying during the course of the conversation he repeated that phrase about "getting" or "doing" me.
I asked my wife whether there was any question of this remark about "getting" or "doing" me relating to what he had said earlier about seeking to take legal action and suing me in the courts. She said unequivocally "No". She understood the way in which Mr. Rowland was using language and that what he was saying was that he would do all in his power to seek to ruin me and he would not be very fussy about the methods he used. In fact she went on to say that even as he spoke on the telephone she wondered whether he meant that he would seek to "get" or "do" me politically or whether she, personally,

and my 10-year-old son, Richard, would be involved. She stressed that Mr. Rowland was perfectly polite throughout the whole conversation, but his meaning was very clear.

Mr. Dykes: In order to prove that Mr. Rowland was polite, could the hon. Member say whether this telephone conversation was tape-recorded?

Mr. Sedgemore: It could only have been tape-recorded by Mr. Rowland himself. My wife is not in the habit of tape-recording telephone conversations.

Mr. Bob Cryer: In the debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill this morning, this very question arose in the presence of the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann), who is a director of Lonrho. He responded to the outline of my hon. Friend's experiences, which I gave, not by saying that in the circumstances he would investigate the matter, but by simply saying that he did not think that Tiny was that sort of chap. The Lonhro report clearly demonstrates that Tiny is very much that sort of chap.

Mr. Sedgemore: I was coming to that point. I take this matter fairly seriously, because on Monday 2nd August I telephoned the office of Lonrho. I said who I was, and referred to the conversations of the previous Friday evening. I was told that Mr. Rowland was not in because he had gone to Ghana and would not be back until some time today.
I discussed this matter with the Clerk of the Committee of Privileges. I do not like resorting to the Committee of Privileges because it seems to me that it is a cumbersome mechanism that should not be used lightly. It is also a mechanism that does not always operate according to the laws of natural justice, and even Mr. Rowland deserves those laws. I did write him a letter dated Monday 2nd August, a copy of which I have here with me. I shall not disclose all its contents, but at the end of it I said that I would reserve my position and would not raise the matter as an issue of privilege unless Mr. Rowland carried out his threats. Then I was free to make it a matter of privilege.
The right hon. Member for Taunton said in the House this morning that he did not think that Mr. Rowland was the


sort of man who could make this kind of statement. It is surprising that he should seek to comment on an issue without trying to check the facts first. According to the Lonrho Report, on 5th May 1973 Mr. Angus Ogilvy records a telephone conversation he had with Mr. Rowland in which he said that Mr. Rowland said:
You have let me down. I will absolutely crucify you.
Then he put the phone down. Threats also were uttered by Mr. Heyman, QC, a Department of Trade inspector. On page 655 of the Lonrho Report Mr. Rowland is reported as saying to Mr. Heyman:
But, by God, it has got one thing, and that is it has got a protector, and that is me. In other words, anybody who wants to kill that company has got to have a sub-machine gun, mortars, guns, all sorts of ammunition, because I am going to protect it to the bitter end. Believe me, Mr. Heyman, in me you have got somebody you have got to fight when it comes to Lonrho.
The threats have continued subsequent to the publication of that report. The inspectors have been threatened and villified in a number of ways. The House should consider whether attempts to block free speech should be allowed before we rise for the Summer Recess.
There are some people who believe that with money comes power, and with a combination of money and power they can do anything. They believe that they stand above and beyond the law, and above and beyond Parliament and free speech. I do not believe that the House believes that this is right. I have no objection to eccentrics. The whole world loves an eccentric. But I must object most strongly to eccentrics who use other people's money and other people's wives for their immoral purposes.

5.5 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Dykes: Despite the massive temptation I will refrain from following the hon. Member down the paths which he has trodden. I am not clear whether he is insisting that the House should not adjourn because of the discomfiture caused to himself, or because of the incident involving his wife, which is quite a different matter.
I wish to raise a different issue. The Leader of the House will be relieved to know that I intend to be brief. That is the good news. Now he must brace himself for the bad news. The right hon.

Member has been a very disappointing Leader of the House, as the entire House knows. He has let the House down with far too much unsatisfactory legislation—

Mr. Russell Kerr: Speak for yourself.

Mr. Dykes: The hon. Member always interrupts from a sedentary position.

Mr. Kerr: It is not worth while standing up to interrupt the hon. Member.

Mr. Dykes: I think that before the House adjourns there is a particular subject which should be considered, As I said, the Leader of the House has been thoroughly unsatisfactory because he has been a rather over-ruthless manager of the Government's business, instead of being a Leader of the House in the fullest sense, as other Leaders have been, irrespective of party.
The right hon. Gentleman could make amends to a certain extent at the end of this elongated and exhausting Session by agreeing to consider a particular Act of Parliament. I realise that this is rather unusual. It is more usual for Leaders of the House to be asked to consider Bills, but from time to time Acts of Parliament, having been passed and having received Royal Assent, should be reconsidered and reappraised.
I refer to the Heavy Commercial Vehicles Act 1973. I attempted to raise this matter last night on the Consolidated Fund Bill but I was prevented from doing so by a procedural quirk—a change in the enumeration of speakers in the early hours of this morning. Despite the fact that I was here all night, I was unable to raise the issue. The Heavy Commercial Vehicles Act received the Royal Assent in July 1973, and it is very important that we should have a reappraisal of it before we adjourn for the Summer Recess. If the Leader of the House will not agree to doing this he must give a good reason to justify his refusal. Other Acts of Parliament have been reappraised after the legislation was enacted—notably the Abortion Act.
The Heavy Commercial Vehicles Act has a particularly unusual characteristic. Although it was enacted in the summer of 1973 it does have a preparatory stage to it leading up to 1st January 1977 when


the draft traffic orders under the Act are to be laid by the local authorities acting as traffic management authorities up and down the country.
This matter should be considered by the House before we adjourn for the recess. I hope that the Leader of the House will bear in mind the continuing pressure which comes not only from what are often called in a semi-cynical fashion the environmental lobbies in general but from any other interests and ordinary citizens that this matter should be considered now.
Let me turn to the preparatory steps now being taken by the local authorities. Clearly there is ample scope in the ways in which individual authorities handle these matters and determine how to introduce the new zones and the street controls for heavy commercial vehicles for there to be enormous variations of approach. Successive Ministers have produced a variety of reports about how things are going. This has caused confusion. At one stage the Road Haulage Association was depressed because it thought that the Government would enjoin the local authorities to be very radical. That emotion was replaced by a resurgence of optimism by road hauliers that perhaps the proposals would be mild and that it would be necessary for them to conform only to a moderate set of restrictions on individual roads.
There have been variations in the impressions received by the trade associations, own-account operators, the environmental protection societies, the National Council for the Preservation of Rural England and individual citizens, of what Ministers have said. I refrain from quoting some of the Questions and Answers from both sides of the House. The Act received all-party support, and the support of the Government of the day. We have tried to get more information from the Government. They have not tried deliberately to obscure the situation but they have not been explicit enough about what is going on.
The last detailed information received was as far back as May 1975 shortly after the conference of interested parties. The Government then gave a fairly lukewarm report about how the preparations were proceeding for limiting the movement and parking of heavy lorries in

different parts of the country, including Greater London, which has slightly different management powers.
There is an overwhelming case for having this subject considered before the House adjourns. Through various Ministers the Government have referred to the economic difficulties and the financial pressures facing the central Exchequer and local authorities. But none of that can be any excuse for the Executive saying that the sensible control of lorries embodied in proposals originally submitted by the local authorities must now be turned down. It is no good the Government saying that the money is not available or that the extra restrictions are unacceptable because they will add to distribution costs.
There is extensive knowledge among drivers, the private road haulage firms. British Road Services and the National Freight Corporation about the roads. It is therefore possible to build up rationally by 1977 the draft orders imposing positive restrictions without exacerbating our economic difficulties. The amount of money needed for road signs is far less than many people think, provided we do not go in for the elaborate electrically-lit signs. The larger local authorities, which are traffic controllers, have a stock of interdiction or limitation signs for lorries. Many local authorities have acted in advance of the Act and have brought in their own local restriction schemes. The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) might acknowledge that in respect of one local authority in London.
A great deal could be done, and the economic crisis cannot be used as an excuse for fighting off the justifiable pressures imposed by the Act to secure a better and more civilised environment for the British people in respect of these juggernauts which remain a problem to be dealt with by Executive action. The Government must make sure that the reserve powers of the Secretary of State are used where necessary, and that the local authorities know that they will be used if they do not get on with the work. Some authorities are undoubtedly backsliding. I will not name them. There must be proper co-ordination between local authorities to avoid inconsistency in the controls.

5.17 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton: I am sorry that Mr. Speaker did not select the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) and myself. My hon. Friend was seeking to delay the Adjournment for a week until next Friday, and I was seeking to knock three weeks off the recess so that we should come back on 20th September. Of course, my hon. Friend's amendment would have meant that we missed the grouse shooting on the 12th, but we all have to make sacrifices.
I have always opposed long Summer Recesses because they give an enormous advantage to the executive branch of Government, and I am against all executive branches of Government, whichever Government happen to be in power. Therefore, the shorter the recess the better for the health of parliamentary democracy.
I was glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore) managed to speak before I did because he touched on a very relevant point which we must debate repeatedly in this House in the run-up to the next General Election, because that is what elections are all about. If there is one thing which will let our people understand British politics. it is the Lonrho report. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley initiated a debate this morning immediately after my debate on alleged social security abuses.
In the course of the last few weeks there has been a mounting crescendo of charges about the abuse of unemployment benefit, of supplementary benefit and of the social service benefits. These charges have been levelled principally by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) who did not come to the House this morning for my debate even though he knew that it was to take place. The hon. Gentleman, who is in the Chamber now, chooses to make his allegations outside the House.

Mr. Iain Sproat: I had my own Adjournment debate for later in the night and I scratched it in order to take part in the hon. Gentleman's debate. Owing to various misunderstandings and chopping and changing, I understood at about 6 o'clock this morning that we were not going to have his debate. I take the blame, but other hon. Members know that there was

a great deal of misunderstanding. I am deeply sorry that I did not have the chance to refute the charges made by the hon. Gentleman. He may be assured that I will do so.

Mr. Hamilton: It will not be before time. The hon. Gentleman has been making allegations about abuses in the social services but has not given one word of evidence or proof. The Minister wrote to him on 14th July, but there has not been a single letter from the hon. Gentleman to the Ministry to substantiate the charges that he has been making outside.
That campaign contrasts strangely with the complete lack of activity of hon. Members opposite on the cesspit of Lonrho. The position was made much worse this morning when we had taking part in the debate one of the well-paid directors of Lonrho, the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann), who is also Chairman of the Tory Party 1922 Committee—the head boy of the Tory Party in this House, the fellow they all look up to for high moral standards.
The right hon. Gentleman sought to deck out this cesspit with roses and perfume. There was not a word of contrition or apology. On the contrary, he said that it was a damn good company and that he was proud to be associated with it. The right hon. Gentleman was put in charge of a committee set up by the company to look into the behaviour of Mr. Duncan Sandys. The Leader of the House knows who he is. He was elevated to the House of Lords, so he must be a good 'un.

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: Like Lord Brayley.

Mr. Hamilton: He was not appointed by the same guy, nor was Brayley tarred with the same brush. I invite the hon. Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken) to read the record of Duncan Sandys and then try to defend the system which creates that kind of jungle.
Duncan Sandys sought to salt away £330,000 in tax havens, some in Jersey and some in the Cayman Islands. The right hon. Member for Taunton said of him:
There has been absolutely no impropriety of any sort on the part of Mr. Sandys. It is clear that he has acted in a straightforward manner throughout.


They are a bunch of crooks who run Lonrho and every one of them ought to be in Brixton Prison. Yet here they are saying what a wonderful contribution the company has made to our export record. Lonrho has been breaking sanctions against Rhodesia for years and is in cahoots with the South African Government. Virtually all its business is done in that part of the world.
It is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House—and I know that he will not shirk it—to see that we come back early, if only in order to have a series of debates in depth and at length on this report and how it compares with the evidence that, by that time, the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South will have presented to the DHSS on the folks who are unemployed having holidays in Spain. The hon. Member will be able to give us names and addresses and chapter and verse in the same way that names and addresses and facts and figures are given in the Lonrho Report at the other end of the social scale. Then we shall be able to adjust the justness of our society.
It would be appropriate to link the debates on the Lonrho report with the Houghton Report on public funds for political parties which should be issued by September. The Conservatives say that they are against the provision of public funds for political parties, but, by heavens, if a scheme is introduced they will take every penny they can get. I have seen it before. The Conservatives object in principle but when a plan is implemented they take every penny they can get.
I understand their taking their present view, particularly in the light of an article that I read by chance in today'sWestern Morning News. Under the heading "Firms Fund the Tories", the City Editor, Mr. Michael Smith, writes:
Despite last year's severe economic recession, big business in the United Kingdom dipped into its pocket to donate over £1·2 million to the Tory Party and its allies. The bulk of the f12 million classified as political donations under company disclosure regulations, went direct to the Conservative Party which collected £591,000.
This is a surprisingly high figure for a non-election year though in 1974 when two general elections were held, companies donated a colossal £1·6 million to Tory Party funds alone. Biggest subscribers to the Conservatives last year were bread giant Rank Hovis McDougall

and electrical combine GEC, who both gave £25,000.
Gifts of £20,000 were given by well-known names like Beecham, Rank Organisation, GKN and sugar giant Tate and Lyle.
There is no mention of Lonrho yet. Maybe its money gets there by other means, perhaps through the Cayman Islands or the Channel Islands or maybe through the House of Lords.

Mr. Sedgemore: It is a different sewerage system.

Mr. Hamilton: The article goes on:
Sums totalling almost £112,000 were also donated to the Economic League which operates a 'black list' of trades union activists. Biggest donations were provided by the 'big four' banks, oil giant Shell and the State-owned British Leyland.
I want the Leader of the House to take up this matter with British Leyland. We are not prepared to provide hundreds of millions of pounds for a company which ladles out cash to the Tory Party. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) hopes to mention this.
In view of the short article on the front page of theSunday Times Business Review called
A tangled tale of Scottish oil
dealing with the Cromarty Petroleum Order Confirmation Bill, which is now being blocked by some of my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr, because they have certain suspicions that something funny is going on, I need not enlarge on that matter. However, no one should be surprised that the eyebrows of my hon. Friends are raised a little when they try to work out the connection between North Sea oil off Scotland, an unknown cancer research outfit in Switzerland registered as a charity which owns tankers flying the Liberian flag, and an English absentee landowner living in Kent who owns this land in Cromarty Firth, and wants to make a quick bob or two by selling to the cancer research fellow who wishes to build an oil refinery. It is an interesting story and we want to know the facts. They are not available in the Library. My hon. Friend has been searching all night for them and the report is not there.

Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: rose—

Mr. Ivan Lawrence: rose—

Mr. Hamilton: I see that the sharks are now rising.

Mr. Fairbairn: If the hon. Gentleman had been here during the debate he would have appreciated that the gentleman to whom he refers as the absentee landlord in England is resisting the acquisition by the company, not aiding it.

Mr. Hamilton: He is resisting it because he wants a damn sight bigger figure. The figure offered is £77,000 and the fellow wants £1 million. That is what the absentee philanthropist wants. He wants not only to sell the land, but to have a share in the spoils.

Mr. Lawrence: Whilst the hon. Gentleman is dilating on the role of philanthropy and attacking the Conservative Party for receiving £1.6 million from industry, will he explain to the House what justification there was for giving £10 million of the taxpayers' money back to the trade unions in 1974?

Mr. Hamilton: It was their own money which had been taken away from them by the legislation passed by the Tory Government. That is the simple answer.
My right hon. Friend has stated that we are to have a Bill on something called devolution in the next Session and that he is anxious not to use the guillotine. I am sorry that he is engaged in other matters, but he can give himself a 50–50 chance of avoiding the use of the guillotine on that Bill by allowing a bit of extra time. That is why I suggest that we start with it on 20th September or some such date.
I give my right hon. Friend a friendly warning. We are all comrades together. I suggest that he may just scrape through with a Second Reading debate on that Bill but his troubles will only then begin. There is no conceivable chance of passing any form of guillotine motion. My friendly warning is that if he tries to introduce it, I for one will vote against it. I shall not abstain. It just needs three or four of his hon. Friends, quite apart from his enemies, to ensure that he will get no guillotine motion. It has been mooted around by some evil-minded people that the Prime Minister is threatening a dissolution and an election in that event. My political career is sufficiently

far advanced for me not to care too much about that.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I do not want to abbreviate my hon. Friend's speech in any way, because that would be a disadvantage to the rest of us. I assure him that the Prime Minister is not proposing to call a General Election before the recess. I hope that that assurance will curtail that part of my hon. Friend's speech.

Mr. Hamilton: I was on a different point. I had gone beyond that point. I was on the point where the guillotine motion, having been defeated, or maybe the Second Reading having been defeated, the Prime Minister comes along and says "Sorry, fellows. If that happens, we shall have a General Election". That would have no influence whatever on me because it does not matter very much to me whether I win or lose the next election. I speak only for myself in saying that that threat will have no influence whatever on me.
That is a powerful reason why my right hon. Friend should reconsider the date of recall. If he gave us an extra few days, he might conceivably avoid introducing the guillotine, although I do not suppose that he will get the Bill through anyhow.

5.37 p.m.

Mr. Reginald Eyre: In addition to the important points which have been made by my hon. Friends the Members for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) and Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes), before the House adjourns there is urgent need for a full Government statement and for time to be allocated for questioning on a subject of tremendous consequence to many of our towns and cities which have large immigrant populations.
Before I refer to a Government-inspired newspaper report which appeared this morning. I should explain to the House that I raised these matters with the Prime Minister in a letter dated 11th June. In the letter I pointed out:
In addition to a limited number of London Metropolitan Boroughs which have substantial immigrant populations, almost the whole of the post-1950 immigrant population is living in the West Midlands, Lancashire, Yorkshire and the East Midlands. Immigrant settlements of over 20,000 or more than 10 per cent, of the total population are to be


found in Birmingham, Leicester, Bradford, Manchester, Wolverhampton, Coventry, Leeds, Nottingham, Sandwell, Walsall, Huddersfield, Luton, Sheffield, Derby and Bolton.
The immigrant populations are settled mainly in the inner, crowded areas of these industrial towns and cities. Many recent reports have illustrated the appalling difficulty of problems affecting these run-down inner areas, including those of education, housing, social stress and unemployment. In these same areas the Government is now actually limiting resources available to local government to provide the basic essential services.
In my letter I pointed out:
The Home Secretary's speech of 24th May setting out Government policy on immigration makes clear that about 60,000 immigrants will be admitted into Britain during the next 12 months and further that about this number of immigrants will be admitted in each of the following two years.
This means that the country will be receiving a population equivalent to a city the size of Worcester every year. We can all imagine the strains and stresses which are bound to follow from arrivals in that range of numbers.
I went on to emphasise a vital point to the Prime Minister:
It is clear that nearly every one of these immigrants will settle permanently in these already established and crowded immigrant reception areas to which I have referred. Furthermore, in the same speech, the Home Secretary declared that no more resources would be made available to the local authorities bearing these responsibilities. As one example of the problems in these areas"—
which I quoted—
it must be borne in mind that Birmingham is now receiving more than 1,200 new immigrant schoolchildren every year and this is evidence of only a part of the extra immigrant demand which is made upon resources in the city with regard to education, housing and social services.
I emphasised to the Prime Minister:
Good race relations in these immigrant reception areas require confidence on the part of all the people living there that decent conditions will be established and maintained. That is going to need a lot of work and a lot of money.
Every Member in this House who is acquainted with these areas knows that is true. We face enormous problems, and to deal with them harmoniously and successfully a lot of work is outstanding and a lot of resources must be allocated to this purpose.
Fears of growing unemployment, especially amongst the young, must be sensitively taken into account in these industrial areas…

Confidence in the future and in the country's ability to succeed in overcoming the problems in the reception areas is being severely questioned. That is one of the causes of tensions. The Government cannot stand aside from these anxieties which are shared by responsible elements in all the families living in these crowded areas.
I urged upon the Prime Minister:
The Government should at once begin a process of urgent consultation with local authorities in these major immigrant reception areas to identify the range of stresses in housing, education and other essential services. The local people in each area—including, of course, all immigrant communities—should be consulted with regard to these problems and the resources required for successfully coping with them.
I ended by saying that, in my view,
the Government faces a stark choice. It must either properly determine and make available increased resources to match the growing needs in the immigrant reception areas directly resulting from the Government's immigration policy. Or the Government must forthwith drastically review its immigration policy.
I received a reply from the Prime Minister on 19th July. In this letter he made it quite clear
that there can be no going back on the Government's commitment to admit into this country the limited categories of further immigrants which were described by the Home Secretary in his speech … in the House on 24th May.
The Prime Minister went on to say that he was
fully aware of the local problems"—
to which I had referred—
and I certainly did not underestimate their severity.
The right hon. Gentleman also referred to the Government's White Paper on Racial Discrimination, which was published last September and said:
the present strengthening of the law on discrimination will need to be supplemented by a more comprehensive strategy for dealing with the related problems of disadvantage. But the White Paper recognised that such a strategy had major public expenditure implications, and that remains the situation.
I do not think that at that stage anybody could say that was particularly helpful with regard to the problems in these crowded areas. The Prime Minister went on:
In the meantime, it is of course open to local authorites to discuss with the Government Departments mainly concerned with the provision of specific services ways in which the main programmes of Government might need to be adapted from time to time to meet the particular needs of Commonwealth immi-


grants. It is also open to local authorities. under Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966, to claim reimbursement of 75 per cent. of expenditure incurred in meeting the cost of additional staff—such as teachers—recruited specifically to meet these needs; and the total amount of local authority expendture currently being grant-aided in this way is about £20 million a year.
Before I speak in too contemptuous terms of the meanness of that figure of £20 million a year devoted by the Government to what are probably the most serious social problems facing them, I point out that the Government's overseas aid alone amounts to more than £280 million a year—more than 14 times as much as the sum referred to by the Prime Minister.
It should also be noted that Government expenditure on, for example, education and libraries, to choose but one of the major items, is running at a rate of more than £5,292 million for 1975–76. Hon. Members get some idea of the tiny scale of the financial obligation assumed by the Government to the immigrant reception areas when they compare the £20 million to which the Prime Minister referred with the £5,292 million on one of the major items of Government expenditure.
Since the Prime Minister's letter, what has happened to affect the situation? First, the Government have tightened their grip on local authority spending by may of cash limits. They have also announced a whole list of expenditure cuts affecting with special severity the industrial towns and cities where immigrants have settled. I refer particularly to hospital programmes and to cuts in housing programmes which have severe consequences by way of limitation on the availability of mortgages through local authorities to people seeking to buy houses in the inner and older areas of our large towns and cities.
Sadly, we all know that unemployment figures have worsened in these areas. What causes particular concern in immigrant reception areas is the rise in the numbers of young people who have no jobs and little hope of jobs for some time to come.
The Government's further imposition of increased national insurance charges has undoubtedly made the unemployment situation in these industrial areas worse. Yesterday. the Secretary of State for the

Environment made it clear that further substantial cuts in local authority expenditure will have to be made.
Can it be right or fair in these circumstances for the arrival of large numbers of extra immigrants in these areas and, as a direct consequence, to extend the area of deprivation in our towns and cities? We already have enormous responsibilities in these areas and terrible problems to face. It cannot be right or fair to anybody living in those areas, from whatever family they may come, to have them living in areas where there is a continued worsening of the situation.
When the Home Secretary set out his immigration policy on 24th May he said that it could be achieved "given sensible planning". I suggest that no one could possibly say that there is evidence of sensible planning in what is going on in these areas which have such serious problems.
This morning there was what I take to be a Government-inspired leak reported in theDaily Telegraph. Briefly, it said:
As a variant on this approach he
—the Prime Minister—
is likely soon to set up, under a senior Cabinet Minister, a committee of Junior Ministers to look at the problem of the inner cities. But any extra funds for helping with these areas, which usually contain concentrations of immigrants. will have to be found from other departmental programmes rather than being an addition to public spending.
If we are to avoid the impression that that leak is entirely cosmetic and are to assume that there is anything genuine about it, surely the Leader of the House will confirm that a statement will be made tomorrow and that details of the committee will be supplied. Which senior Cabinet Minister will be the chairman? Who are the Ministers concerned and what is the range of responsibilities? Who will be considering these matters? What consultations with local authorities will take place? What consultations will take place with all the people living in these densely crowded inner areas of cities, whose lives are so seriously affected by this situation? These very important questions will have to be answered.
If these Ministers begin to see the development of unanswerable problems, will they be entitled, in the interests of every family that now makes its home


in these crowded areas, to review the immigration laws? It cannot be right that the Government should go on in this way. It cannot be right for the Government to impose extra burdens upon these areas and to create extra problems when decent standards cannot now be maintained under the present allocation of Government resources.
I ask the Leader of the House to take this matter very seriously. It is of great concern to people in these areas. I hope that he will confirm that a full statement will be made by the Government before the House rises for the recess.

5.51 p.m.

Mr. Ioan Evans: This has been a strenuous Session. In some senses, most hon. Members will be anxiously looking forward to the recess. I have considerable sympathy with the desire of my hon. Friends the Members for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) and for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) to shorten the recess. As I have said in a previous debate about an adjournment, I cannot see why a modern parliamentary system should continue on the basis of meeting at 2.30 p.m. and going on until perhaps 2.30 a.m. the following day. That is a parliamentary system for another age. The House of Commons should no longer cater for those Members who are of the legal profession or those in the City who are otherwise occupied in the mornings, and we should not go on until the early hours, as we did this morning.

Mr. Max Madden: Does my hon. Friend agree that while our hours are determined largely by part-time Members, the recesses are organised around the farming year and that it is decided that we should go into a long recess for harvesting reasons? Now that farming interests are not represented in the House to the extent that they once were, does my hon. Friend agree that there is an excellent case for revising the recesses and their duration to fit modern circumstances and the requirements of the majority of Members?

Mr. Evans: That is a very telling point. My hon. Friend is quite correct. Historically, Parliament has to rise at this time to collect the harvest.

Mr. George Cunningham: Nonsense.

Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend very often says "Nonsense".
However, we should be looking at the question of the times at which Parliament meets. We had an important subject debated at eight o'clock this morning—Lonrho. That is a vital subject, yet it was debated at the twentieth hour of the House meeting. We met for 21 hours yesterday. We should bring a bit of sanity into this matter.
I believe that my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench will be a good Leader of the House. He might accidentally find that he has a little more time on his hands in the next Session than he expects. If that proves to be so, I hope that we shall concern ourselves not only with reforming the House of Lords but, before that, reforming the House of Commons, because a great deal of reform is required.
Before going into the recess one of the topics that we should be discussing is the decision made yesterday by the National Economic Development Council, which endorsed a growth projection by the Chancellor of the Exchequer involving an average output growth rate of 8 per cent. between 1975 and 1979. There has been agreement between the CBI, the TUC and the Government on a major policy. That could well have been the basis of a debate here—rather than the artificial debate that we had with the Opposition earlier this week, which was an absolute non-event. Here we have a dramatic development. We should be looking at the Government's industrial strategy, which could well be toughened up a little.
I should like to refer particularly to the question of selective import controls. If the TUC, the CBI and the Government are to achieve an output growth rate of 8 per cent., we must look at some of our industries. Earlier this week I tabled a series of Questions to the Secretaries of State for Trade, Industry and Employment. I have not been able to formulate the action required, but I take as an example the electronics industry.
In recent years, under Governments of both major parties, there have been very small imports of electronic goods. However, now 93 per cent. of radios in Britain


are imported, and 100 per cent. of cassette radios are imported. It is estimated that over 60 per cent. of the unit audio equipment in this country is imported. This is causing me deep anxiety.
My constituency has a coal-mining industry that is passing through a prosperous phase, which may well continue, but because there has been a cutback in that industry in past years, there are two important electronics industries there. One of them is involved in manufacturing colour television sets, and the other is providing components for the colour television industry. At present, imports of colour television sets have penetrated only to about 13 per cent. of the market, but we see external forces operating to kill these industries here. Fair competition is not operating.
I know that the Government are anxious to try to maintain free trade. However, we cannot approach this problem as though it were a game of cricket or tiddly-winks. In a world economic recession, we are in an all-in wrestling match with other countries. We must take action about the problems facing us.
Earlier in the Session I sought to raise, under Standing Order No. 9, the problem of Southern Africa, which was highlighted by the tragedy at Soweto, where children and students were attacked. It is sad that we have not had time to debate Southern Africa. The United Nations has debated it. Yesterday there was a repetition of the tragedy, when black children of Soweto, whose crime was that they wanted to be taught in English and not in Afrikaans, which is the language of the apartheid system, were again shot down in the street.
On a major issue such as that it is important that the voice of this House should be heard with the voices of the assemblies of the world. We have not had a real opportunity to discuss that issue, although there has been, unfortunately, a close affinity between this country and South Africa, which continues in some ways even to this day. But the voice of this House on that issue is not heard. I am sure that there are hon. Members on both sides of the House who would condemn the apartheid system in South Africa and condemn this latest expression of it. It is important that we should debate that subject.
I was pleased with the Leader of the House when earlier today he held out the hope that, as a House, we might return to the Lonrho Report. It is not so very far away from the question of Southern Africa. It is certainly close to the question of Rhodesia. "Lonrho" is an abbreviation of the London Rhodesia Company. The leader of the House said that we might have a debate on that subject in the overspill period. In the short debate on Lonrho this morning a request was made for more time for a debate, and I hope that that request will be acceded to. I would welcome the opportunity to come back a few days earlier to take part in a debate on that subject. On the first day of our return we are to talk about the Highway Code. The Lonrho Report is surely of greater importance.
At various times books have been published which have had a major effect on people's thinking. In the Labour movement there was Nye Bevan's book "In Place of Fear". George Orwell's book "The Road to Wigan Pier" and others of his books had a big impact on our thinking. There was also Professor Galbraith's "The Affluent Society". But this tremendous publication, the Lonrho Report, is not available to the general public because it costs more than £13. Perhaps the Leader of the House will suggest to the Department of Trade the publication of a popular, paper-back edition. The Lonrho Report reads like an Agatha Christie novel; it is good reading.
The former Conservative Prime Minister was justified in talking about "the unacceptable face of capitalism". My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore) said that the Lonrho organisation was getting in touch with him to try to prevent him from participating in the House in discussion of the Lonrho Report. The former Leader of the Opposition used the expression "the unacceptable face of capitalism", yet the Chairman of the 1922 Committee is a Lonrho director. Perhaps such expressions are no longer acceptable to the Conservative Party and that is why there has been a change of leadership. That might be one of the ramifications of the Lonrho Report.
In recent days there has been an attack on the Welfare State. We hear that the Government have taken action against retired field marshals, company directors


and bank managers who, under the previous Conservative Government, could register for and receive unemployment benefit. Nothing was said by the Conservative Party about that. But now there is tremendous anxiety about people who are on holiday in Spain drawing unemployment benefit. That is the allegation, although no proof has been produced.
We should have a major debate on the future of the Welfare State. It would give the Leader of the Opposition the opportunity to address the House. She goes off to America and Bonn making speeches about the Soviet Union and saying that it is a land-locked country—whereas it has the largest coastline of any country—but she seldom addresses the House. We have not heard the Leader of the Opposition in the House since 9th June. She is supposed to be a prospective Prime Minister. If an accident happened and the Tories won the next election she could become Prime Minister. It is imperative that the Leader of the Opposition should make speeches in the House, not in New York and Bonn, or in Australia and New Zealand. It is impossible to get further away than that from the House.
We may have earned the recess, but I believe that the procedures of the House should be changed. It would be better to have an occasional short recess to enable us to meet our constituents, recharge our batteries and discover what our constituents are worried about, rather than for us to be confined to this monastic existence, often until the early hours of the morning, and then to have a long recess. I hope that the Leader of the House will bring forward proposals for organising our recesses more effectively and more efficiently.

6.5 p.m.

Mr. Robert Hicks: Before the House rises for the Summer Recess, we should give further consideration to the problem of unemployment, especially in the light of the recent statements made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Employment. Since the Chancellor's statement, in which he announced the projected cuts in the level of public expenditure envisaged for 1977–78, the House has given insufficient attention to the real implications those cuts can have on certain sectors of indus-

try and commerce and within certain regions.
There are now almost 1½ million people unemployed—6·3 per cent. of the total registered work force, All of us in the House, on whichever side we sit and whichever party we reflect, will agree that this is a waste of national resources. The position will probably get worse before it gets better. I say that in spite of the report earlier this week which suggested that there would be increased activity in the economy.
In his statement the Chancellor acknowledge that, as a direct consequence of his actions, a further 60,000 people are likely to be out of work, of which 10,000 might be directly attributed to his decision to increase the employers' national insurance contribution.
Contained within this national unemployment figure is the tragic sector of youth unemployment. That aspect is most worrying because nothing can be more depressing for the school leaver at the age of 16, or the person leaving technical college at 18 or 19, than to have to face the prospect of having no job and no career structure before him. The 16 to 28 range is a crucial age group. Nothing could be worse for the future productive output of the country and the whole fabric of our social structure than for these young people to be allowed to remain out of work for too long.
I was interested in the remarks made by the Secretary of State for Employment on the subject of encouraging early retirement. I wish that the opportunity had existed then for further questioning and subsequent debate. The feasibility of a scheme which enables employees approaching pensionable age voluntarily to step down to make way for unemployed young people is worthy of further consideration.
Last weekend a young trained schoolteacher came to see me. The irony of his situation was that he completed his three-year teacher training course last July, and fixed himself up with his first teaching appointment, but because he did better in his exams than even he expected he was invited to stay on to undertake a Bachelor of Education year. That man now has a further qualification but, regrettably, no job Therefore, I hope that at an early stage we shall see some


indication of the Government proposals for voluntary retirement, particularly for teachers.
The third point I wish to raise concerns the unemployment situation in the various regions. About five-sixths of the constituency of Bodmin is within a development area and the remaining one-sixth falls within the Plymouth intermediate area, which is also an assisted area. Almost 10 per cent. of the work force in the South-West assisted area is currently unemployed. I remember the outburst of horror and derision from the Labour Benches in 1972 when the national unemployment figure exceeded a million—for the first time, I think I am right in saying, since the war. The situation is now worse in the South-West assisted area, not only in absolute terms but relative to the country as a whole. Whereas in earlier years the unemployment rate was 4 per cent., it is now much higher. It is an umbrella figure with significant local variations, and indeed in parts of my constituency the unemployment figure exceeds 14 per cent.
I wish to impress on the Leader of the House, who has first-hand knowledge of the area to which I refer because his family home is within my constituency, that our area differs from all other development areas in that it is not a long-established industrial region, or a region in which traditional industries have run down and need to be rejuvenated or replaced. Our economy is based on the primary activities such as agriculture, horticulture, fishing, mining and quarrying, and tourism in the area is also important. There are also scattered and diversified light industries based in our numerous market towns.
The great majority of the region's economic activities are operated by small business units. They are very much the key to the success or failure of the level of economic activity in the South-West region. There is no doubt that in the past two years or so they have taken a hammering in many ways. In part, this reflects the external economic circumstances, but part of the responsibility must be laid at the door of the Labour Government.
Whatever the reasons, the present position is far from satisfactory. We have a high level of unemployment, and also the self-employed person has suffered. When

I remind the House that 20 per cent. of the work force of the Bodmin constituency is self-employed, the House will realise the extent of the dependence of the local economy on such people. Therefore, I believe that further consideration should be given to the effects of the public expenditure package recently announced and the recent statement by the Secretary of State for Employment as it affects the assisted areas of the South-West.
Unfortunately, the precedents are not very encouraging. Repeatedly, public expenditure policies are outlined by the Government, but no sooner have they been presented to the House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer than the Secretary of State for Employment issues a circular or makes a further statement instructing local authorities to spend money on schemes such as job creation. In other words, on the one hand local authorities are told to cut priority projects, such as schools and health centres or housing programmes, which means a further contraction of the building and construction industry, and yet at the same time to undertake projects of a lower priority as part of a job creation programme.
I wish particularly to mention the subject of housing because the South-West, owing to its lack of a wide industrial base, relies heavily on the building and construction industries. In response to the Chancellor's recent statement, local authorities in my constituency have already received instructions from the Department of the Environment to reduce their housing programmes. The impact of these decisions will have an adverse effect on the economy of the area which I represent and, furthermore, the implications in social terms in further reducing opportunities for people to be satisfactorily housed are considerable.
Rural areas will suffer as a consequence of the Chancellor's statement. In making that statement the right hon. Gentleman said that areas of housing stress in large conurbations would receive preferential treatment. That situation has already occurred in respect of capital expenditure on new sewerage schemes in rural areas but I suggest that we have an equally serious housing problem in terms of numbers and standards of existing premises. When seen on paper by officials in Whitehall, the numbers may look far smaller than those in urban areas but expressed as a percentage and in terms of absolute need


I believe that our requirements are no less important. That is why I believe that further consideration should be given to these matters before we rise.

6.18 p.m.

Mr. Bob Cryer: I believe that the House should not adjourn before we have discussed some urgent matters. I am sorry that my amendment was not called, because it would have kept the House here until Friday 13th August, the day after grouse shooting begins. We might have had the opportunity of passing some legislation while the Tories were out on the grouse moors.
I put forward the serious suggestion that we need more time because, for example, in the past few months we have not discussed the subject of health and safety at work. We discuss such subjects only when major disasters such as Flixborough occur. We should pay due regard to the recent Italian experience. Constant scrutiny of health and safety matters is necessary, and this should not happen only when disasters occur.
I should like to question and debate the annual report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and the work of the Health and Safety Commission. I should like to know what has happened to the regulations on trade union representation which have been promised to us for many months. Representations on the consultative document had to be in by 13th March, yet we still have not had regulations laid before Parliament providing for the appointment of trade union safety representatives to assist in the important matter of maintaining health and safety at work.
On the other hand, the Health and Safety Commission has produced the Operations at Unfenced Machinery (Amendment) Regulations 1976 which have the effect of allowing women access to dangerous machinery. I should have thought that we were concerned about men, too, having access to dangerous machinery and would not deal with the matter on some spurious basis of sex equality or lower standards to allow both sexes to have access to it.
I wonder what priorities the Health and Safety Commission follows. What is it doing about the question of the lifting of heavy weights? A Bill which I brought

forward has been blocked. Every year 50,000 people are injured in this way, involving three or more days off work.
The law on the subject is extremely confusing. Agricultural labourers are allowed to lift up to 180 lbs. Some of us might try in a few days to see how able we are to lift that sort of weight. If an agricultural labourer is injured, he cannot claim breach of statutory duty because the statute lays down an upper limit. There is an upper limit for textile workers of 150 lbs and a lower limit of 125 lbs if the weight is not compact.
The ILO standard is 120 lbs and my Bill suggested 112 lbs. Therefore, the situation is very confusing and it should be clarified.
The other matter that I want to raise concerns asbestos. My hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) is present. His record in this respect is excellent; he has done first-rate work. But what has the committee which was set up done? When the Secretary of State for Employment first referred to the matter, we were promised a statement. It has not been made. We want to know what the committee is doing.
We also wish to examine the question of the effect of working conditions. There is a very good pneumoconiosis scheme for miners, but it has not been extended to foundry workers. Many months ago the branch in my constituency of the foundry workers' union passed a resolution that the pneumoconiosis scheme should be extended to foundry workers. That is the sort of question which should be considered in Parliament.
Another matter which needs to be continually scrutinised concerns the people who consider whether machinery in factories is dangerous, namely, the factory inspectorate. Many months ago there was debate and consultation about the reorganisation of the factory inspectorate. What has happened since? Are local offices being closed?
It was said that about 80 or 90 local offices would be considered for closure. Is it wise to consider reorganisation of that sort when one of the best safeguards of health and safety at work in a factory, office, shop or railway premise is to be able to telephone the factory inspector and know that he will be present in an hour?
That is the sort of important matter which we should discuss. We cannot go blithely along until a disaster occurs. Because of the Italian experience in a high technological nation, where a lethal vapour has been released, questions are being asked in this country. Do not let us wait until there is a recurrence here More Parliament considers the matter. There should be continual scrutiny. Let us not go into recess until we have considered urgent matters of this sort.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: Before the House rises, I should like a representative of the Department of the Environment to make a statement on a matter which seems to raise considerable constitutional issues, although it may appear to be of minor importance, namely, the refusal of members of two Civil Service unions at the Swansea licensing centre to transfer certain motor car numbers.
Let us be clear about the constitutional considerations that this matter raises. If public servants employed for a purpose are to be permitted to say which bits of their work they fancy and approve of and will undertake and which bits they will not undertake, the situation is very serious. During the debates on the Finance Bill the Minister for Transport said:
I may say that patriotic civil servants down at Swansea thoroughly resent having to spend their time on this type of work at all and regard it as thoroughly frivolous use of their time."—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 18th May 1976; c. 106.]
One hundred of them are employed to do 50,000 transfers a year, which works out at 250 working days each with two transfers a day. If they do not wish to do the work, they can resign from their employment.
There is a large number of other implications. Hon. Members opposite below the Gangway who no doubt think that this involves a privilege which Tory squires enjoy and nobody else enjoys should consider the figures. Nearly 500,000 people in this country have numbers of their choice. Many of them are Labour voters. Fortunately, I have been given a book which lists them and I looked at it to see how many Socialists were among them.
Hon. Members opposite are interested in the subject of employment in the motor industry. A large number of people have contracted to buy motor cars but cannot obtain them as a result of the action taken in Swansea. I do not think that that is understood.
Moreover, a serious criminal law matter is involved. A considerable number of people are committing a criminal offence by travelling about without a car registration number, because the people at Swansea have failed to send them a log book and a registration number.
A serious matter of principle is involved. It does not affect me because I do not have one of these numbers, so do not let hon. Members opposite imagine that I have an interest in it. I do not want one of these numbers: I do not wish people to know where I am all the time.
Let us be clear about the reasons given—[Interruption.] I heard thesotto voce comment of the Leader of the House. He always makes such comments loud enough for those not meant to hear them. The two reasons advanced for the refusal to do the work are, first, that the procedure subjects those involved to abuse, and, secondly, that it subjects them to corruption. Let me first deal with the question of abuse. This is a typical complaint against someone who has waited four months for his log book and licensing disc:
My staff and my customers are increasingly voicing their anger at the discourteous, arrogant and rude manner in which they are treated by those who call themselves servants in this matter.
It is utterly wrong for those persons to complain about members of the public and to subject them to abuse when they cause so much inconvenience to members of the public. If, for instance, they do not send a licensing disc before the expiry of the last one, the motorist commits an offence under the Road Traffic Act. In such a case, I should have thought that that was a reasonable basis for which to be abused.
The second reason given is bribery. No doubt all of us can be offered bribes. Members of Parliament could be offered bribes. Policemen could be offered bribes not to breathalyse motorists suspected of infringing the drink and driving laws. However, all that a person offered a bribe


need do is refuse it, unless of course he is so corrupt as to accept it. It is easy enough to refuse a bribe and to report it to the appropriate authorities.
So the purported excuses are a very poor justification for establishing what seems to me to be a dangerous constitutional precedent, and I hope sincerely that the Minister for Transport will be able to resolve the matter. He said that he had the intention of ending the practice. Therefore, we must have a situation where those who are perfectly entitled to obtain certain numbers will have entered into transactions which are partly through. I know, for instance, that Stirling Moss sold his car and kept his number plates three months ago. He still has not obtained the transfer of the registration number. Now he has no number plates on his car because the transfer of the number has been refused. It is important to remember that the present state of affairs either deprives people of their cars or causes them to commit motoring offences.
Government supporters may think that this is a trivial matter, but when public servants refuse to do those parts of their work which they personally or politically find odious, it is a very dangerous precedent. Government supporters would not like it if it was in the reverse direction.
I hope that the Minister of Transport will be able to issue a statement saying that this extremely unsatisfactory matter has been resolved satisfactorily and quickly.

6.32 p.m.

Mr. Neil Kinnock: Of all the ceremonial hypocrisies in which we engage in this House, this debate is probably the nicest. The part which I like especially is the stage when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House rises, after we have been appealing to him not to let us go home, to tell us "Sorry, lads, you must go home. You have no other choice." I must admit that I am relying on my right hon. Friend to say exactly the same today, because I have not got it in my heart to turn down such a request from him—at least, not until we get the Second Reading of the devolution Bill.
The reason why I hope that we shall forbear to rise for some while longer is

that to which the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Hicks) drew our attention just now, although, since it came before the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) it seems a long time ago. I refer, of course, to the whole problem of unemployment, although the part which concerns me on this occasion is that of youth unemployment, especially in the context of the statement on Tuesday by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and specifically the part of his statement in which he mentioned the possibility of the introduction of a job swap scheme, making provision for older workers to be retired on Government allowances in order to make way for unemployed of a younger age.
We have record youth unemployment despite the two-year old raising of the school leaving age, which has probably reduced youth unemployment figures considerably. Nearly 250,000 of our youngsters are unemployed. In Wales the figure is again a record one of more than 11,000, and in my own county of Gwent it is an incredible 3,000—that, in the county which ostensibly has been the most prosperous part of Wales for some decades past. What is more nearly a third of those unemployed youngsters come from my constituency. My right hon. Friend's constituency in Ebbw Vale is similarly afflicted. Obviously, therefore, we need to undertake not just the immediate attempts to remedy the situation announced by my right hon. and hon. Friends successively over the past few years of job creation programmes as welcome as they are, but a structural and much more fundamental change in our approach to youth unemployment.
Last Tuesday my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment said:
The Government are urgently considering whether a scheme can be devised to enable older workers who are very close to pensionable age to leave employment and so release jobs for younger unemployed people.
When he said that, it appeared to me that we were moving towards the kind of structural change that was required.
Characteristic of the kind of unemployment that we have now is not only its size but its structure. We are in danger of moving to a position where, if we leave the resolution of our problem of


unemployment to the gamble of the great upturn—the great improvement in the world economy—we shall still, after that fortunate event, have to adjust our national economy to the idea that 1 million or 750,000 unemployed are an acceptable base which will approximate in future to the idea of full employment.
If we do not make changes in the demographic structure of our work force by reducing the retirement age, it is certain that, because of advances in technology, changes in taste and changes in the location of industry, we shall be left with fewer people producing more things, and a consequent surplus in the very large number of those who want to work but who cannot find work.
The idea put forward by my right hon. Friend is not coming too soon. However, in discussing that my right hon. Friend said that older workers who volunteered to take early retirement would receive an allowance from the Government until they reached normal pensionable age. I fully endorse that, but I add that the figure should not be less than the average manufacturing wage. The one fact standing between vast numbers of workers aged between 55 and 65 taking early retirement is the deplorably low level of benefit and national insurance pension that they would receive if they did.
If we entertain a realistic figure to compensate people for leaving work early of not less than £60 a week, we shall be talking sensibly about advancing the idea of voluntary early retirement. That figure will make many minds boggle. But a young man with two children of school age who has worked 20 years for the same employer will this year be receiving about £3,200 in benefits and allowances. It is much cheaper and altogether more acceptable to pay £60 a week to a 55year-old man who wants to retire than well over £60 a week to a young man who is desperate for work to provide for his wife and children. That is the mathematics of the kind of unemployment that we have now.
In his statement, my right hon. Friend went on to impose very reasonable and sensible conditions. He said that the arrangement would be made and that the money would be paid
on the condition that the employer undertook to recruit a replacement from the unemploy-

ment register and that the worker released did not enter further employment or claim unemployment benefit while in receipt of the allowance.
That is very sensible. But the idea that the scheme should last only for six months is not sensible. In my view we should be discussing a permanent provision for the gradual reduction of the retirement age first by voluntary means and then compulsorily. Putting a bracket of six months round such a scheme undermines its credibility from the outset.
There is also the idea that the scheme should apply mainly to the assisted areas. Generally speaking, I suppose that there is more unemployment in the assisted areas. However, the demand for a lower retirement age is universal throughout the whole country. That is borne out by the post bags of hon. Members.
Then my right hon. Friend said:
The Government will be consulting the TUC and CBI on the matter and will report to the House in due course."—[Official Report, 3rd August 1976; Vol. 916, c. 1442–3.]
I wish that such a report could be made before we rise for the Summer Recess so that we had the prospect of an elementary change in the way in which we go about employing people, paying them for their work and providing for their leisure and old age.
There are 3 million people in work in this country between the ages of 55 and 64. It is no exaggeration to say that hundreds of thousands of them, some in various stages of chronic illness and dragging themselves to work, would truly like to be able to retire. We should save large numbers of lives by allowing them to do so. We should make a reasonable provision for such people to have a longer retirement by doing it and we should reduce industrial accidents.
Although in other respects the absentee rate for the 55 to 64-year-olds bears comparison with any other age group, the accident rate and sickness rate among that group are substantially higher than for any other group in employment.
For the sake of humanity and the sensible financial provision for the kind of reductions in the work force that we must make if we are to avoid an economy in which 1 million people are permanently unemployed, I hope that my


hon. Friends will give serious consideration to making permanent provision for gradual reductions in the compulsory retirement age and an immediate and generous provision for compensating people for taking voluntary retirement at ages over 55.

6.42 p.m.

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: I believe that the House should not adjourn until it has given further consideration to the Prime Minister's answer to a series of questions relating to immigration policy which he gave to the House on Tuesday.
I was the hon. Member who initiated the first Question on Tuesday afternoon on this subject. At the end of the somewhat heated exchange, I said on a point of order that, in view of the Prime Minister's unsatisfactory answer, I would seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment. Normally that is a somewhat empty threat, but, by the good fortune of the imminence of the summer Adjournment debate, I am able to explain why I belive the Prime Minister was showing an unacceptable degree of complacency on the subject of immigration and why I fully support the Leader of the Opposition in her remark that there is nothing party political about asking the Government to give the facts on the number of Commonwealth dependants entitled to come into this country.
On readingHansard of last Tuesday, I believe that it seems that the phrase which somehow got under the Prime Minister's skin was my suggestion that the Government's attitude to immigration figures was "a shambles". The Prime Minister—wily old bird that he is—immediately replied that the immigration figures should somehow be above politics. The way he resorted so speedily to that time-honoured device immediately confirmed to my sceptical mind that political pressure was necessary in order to get at the facts.
I believe that the immigration figures are a statistical shambles because of the alarming lack of knowledge and lack of desire to give us any idea whatever about the size of the dependants' queue. That is clearly demonstrated by the conflicting information that is now being published by three Government Departments. There is a serious contradiction between the

figures being issued by the Home Office, the Foreign Office and the Treasury. I should like to illustrate the discrepancies.
The headquarters of the Home Office Immigration Department is in Croydon, at Lunar House. That is a most aptly named building because of the statistical moonshine which it publishes in respect of dependants. The Home Office view, which has been expressed on many occasions by Home Office Ministers and which is still held by them today, is that the queue of dependants entitled to come into this country is a finite figure of about 100,000.
Indeed, the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon)—incidentally, we all wish him well for a speedy recovery from his serious illness—always gave as his reason for increasing the inflow of immigrants the justification that there was an end in sight. He said that it would be reached as soon as 100,000, or thereabouts, Commonwealth immigrants had been admitted. But that reason has been proved to be complete and utter nonsense and the proof has come from the two other Government Departments—the Foreign Office and the Treasury.
The Home Office figures were published somewhat inadvertently by the publication of the Hawley Report. Paragraph 21 of that report said:
The present position is unsatisfactory because current procedures and instructions are based on a Home Office assumption that the immigration problem in the sub-continent is finite and that we are in the last stages of clearing up a backlog of 'entitled' dependants. All the Heads of Missions and Posts are convinced that this assumption is wrong and I share their view.
Elsewhere in the report Mr. Hawley quotes figures suggesting that some 240,000 immigrant dependants are entitled to come to Britain from Bangladesh and some 70,000 from Delhi, to name but two posts. He also makes the point that the new concessions to admit male fiancés, and presumably their dependants also, is producing a multiplier effect and that this gives the lie to the Home Office claim that the dependant queue is finite.
It clearly cannot be finite because if we are to admit male fiancés, we are in a situation where we shall have to admit their dependants as well. The Foreign Office view utterly contradicts the Home Office view. There have been those who


say that the Foreign Office view is quite wrong and that Mr. Hawley is an alarmist, but that is not so, because support for Mr. Hawley's findings has now come from the Treasury.
That view appeared, again perhaps somewhat inadvertently, in an answer given by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart). In that answer the Financial Secretary revealed that income tax child allowances are given for some 500,000 children who are not resident in the United Kingdom. That figure includes some Irish children and the children of British civil servants living abroad. But the Inland Revenue has since calculated and suggested that of this total approximately 300 thousand coloured children from the New Commonwealth are the intended beneficiaries of these allowances. It is therefore clear from the Treasury evidence that 300,000 children from the New Commonwealth are entitled to come into this country. That, again, contradicts the Home Office view.
The Home Office is still sticking to its view that there is a finite pool of about 100,000 dependants entitled to come here. But a senior civil servant, Mr. Philip Woodfield, went out to all the posts and heads of missions and he has sent a secret report to the Home Secretary on this matter. That secret document has not yet been published byNew Society but I gather from reliable sources that the Woodfield Report confirms the Hawley Report and, indeed, that is confirmed by the Treasury figures.
It is relevant to ask when are we to be told the truth about the size of the dependants' queue. The Leader of the House is perhaps not the best person to give us the answers. I say that on account of his own extraordinary remark in the House about immigration on 20th July. During the middle of the debate on the guillotine in respect of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill at one point my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw) suddenly asked the Leader of the House:
Would the Minister say today that he and his right hon. Friends wished that their efforts to stop the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill in 1962 had been successful?

The Leader of the House replied:
I do. I have never changed my mind about the matter. I took the same view then. This is a different question, but I have given the answer for which the right hon. Gentleman asked."—[Official Report, 20th July 1976; Vol. 915, c. 1535.]
The right hon. Gentleman gave a most interesting answer and I would ask him whether it means that he is in favour of unlimited immigration. If he is still in favour of unlimited immigration into this country, I must tell him that it is a recipe for disaster no less misguided than the National Front's desire for compulsory repatriation.
If we are to have good race relations in this country, we must seek to steer a middle course but we cannot begin to get our bearings unless we have the map giving the figures of the size of the problem. We cannot have either a sensible immigration policy, or good race relations, until we know what the numbers are in the dependants' queue. We do not know those numbers from any Government Department today.
I continue to be somewhat saddened, although in no way deterred from what I believe to be right, by the way in which one or two Labour Members seek to smear anyone who asks questions or makes speeches about immigration with allegations of being a racialist. I am in no way referring to the Prime Minister or the Leader of the House, who have done no such thing, but some of their hon. Friends are much less fair in this matter. They have launched unscrupulous attacks on almost everyone who has asked for clarity and control of immigration, from the Archbishop of Canterbury downwards.
Those few hon. Members should realise that strict immigration control is the friend and not the enemy of good race relations in this country. If they are interested in good race relations the sooner we get clarity and truth on the immigration figures the better.

6.51 p.m.

Mr. George Cunningham: I shall be very brief, because I am taking part in this debate for only one purpose—to invite the Leader of the House on behalf of the Foreign Secretary to give me some assurances about the manner in which the Government during the Summer


Recess will handle the affair of the two British nationals, Mr. and Mrs. Rabkin, who are at the moment in prison in South Africa without charge, although Mrs. Rabkin is six months pregnant.
The embassy in Johannesburg has had access to Mrs. Rabkin but so far access has been denied to the embassy in respect of Mr. Rabkin. My information is that Mrs. Rabkin is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies and that Mr. Rabkin is also a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, but may also be a citizen of the Republic of South Africa. Even if he is a dual national, what ought to matter is that he is a national of this country with a prolonged period of residence in this country. That fact should give to our embassy and consular officers the right of access to him.
I do not think that the Government of South Africa has signed or ratified the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In fact, to be truthful, I am not sure that this country has signed and ratified it. I asked the Foreign Office the last question an hour or two back and it seems to have been unable to get the answer to me before now.
The provisions of the convention set out a kind of statement of good international practice on this matter. It is worth referring to. I hope that our embassy in South Africa is making use of it, whether or not we have been able fully to ratify the convention yet.
The relevant article appears to be Article 36, which states:
With a view to facilitating the exercise of consular functions relating to nationals of the sending State…consular officers shall have the right to visit a national of the sending State who is in prison, custody or detention, to converse and correspond with him and to arrange for his legal representation.
The following paragraph is a kind of qualification:
The rights referred to in paragraph I of this Article shall be exercised in conformity with the laws and regulations of the receiving State, subject to the proviso, however, that the said laws and regulations must enable full effect to be given to the purposes for which the rights accorded under this Article are intended.
That seems to me to make it clear that, under good international practice, the British embassy in South Africa ought to have access not only to Mrs. Rabkin, who is a United Kingdom citizen and

only that so far as I know, but to Mr. Rabkin, even if he is a dual national. But of course it would be easier for the embassy to decide whether he is a dual national if the embassy had access to him.
I hope that in dealing with this matter—one recognises that it is always a difficult matter of judgment, which can only be made by the embassy on the spot, to decide how to play such a case—the embassy is not letting slip any weapon or any argument or any pressure upon the South Africans initially to give access to both of these British nationals, secondly to tell the South Africans that, if they are not bringing charges, these people should be released forthwith, whatever the South African Prevention of Terrorism Act says, and to press the South Africans to allow Mr. and Mrs. Rabkin to leave South Africa and come back to this country.
The South Africans ought to be told that the conditions which they enjoy in this country with regard to diplomatic immunity stem from the same practices in international law which give us the right of access to our nationals in prison in South Africa and that we should have to review our treatment of the South African staff in the embassy here—that we should have to review, for example, the numbers of staff in the South African Embassy here—if we are to be faced with this kind of treatment of British nationals in South African prisons.
I hope that the Lord President can say on behalf of the Foreign Secretary that every effort will be used to protect these two nationals and that we shall not mince words with the South Africans at all where that seems to be the best way to get a good solution, and that we shall go beyond words and say that if the South Africans are going to treat our nationals in this way, we shall have to look closely at the treatment of the South African diplomats in London.

6.57 p.m.

Mr. Ivan Lawrence: Since all of us really want to go home and some of us need to go home, I seek to delay the Adjournment of the House for perhaps only the 30 seconds necessary for a statement by the Lord President. I ask that the House should not adjourn before


an announcement is made about the subject of tape recording police interviews, especially since we have on numerous occasions been promised that an annoucement would be made in the summer.
To bring the matter to the forefront of hon. Members' minds, I would explain that the statement which an accused person is alleged to have made frequently forms a very important part of a criminal trial and usually that statement, which is usually an admission of guilt, is alleged to be false. If the jury think that it is false, they will be likely to acquit the defendant, even though that defendant may be guilty. If the jury do not think that the statement of admission of guilt is false, they will be likely to convict, even though on occasions injustice results.
My own experience, for what it is worth, is that the acquittal of guilty people in this country is far more attributable to the belief by juries that the police have not been thoroughly honest than to any other single cause. We must remember that 52 per cent. of those who pleaded not guilty to serious crimes in trials before juries are acquitted. That was more than 9,000 people last year.
Therefore, the allegation of dishonesty which is so frequently made in our courts against police officers, and which results mainly from the evidence of an alleged interview, is a substantial factor in any lack of respect for the police. It is a national disgrace that we should sit back and allow that to be so.
Tape recordings have been suggested as likely to improve the situation. One judge in Canada has said:
…tape recording…is better evidence and more capable of correct interpretation by a jury thanviva voce evidence or a written statement, since it reproduces not only the exact words of the accused but the inflection and tone of the voice as well, without the necessity of substituting another's interpretation".
Three years ago, the Criminal Law Revision Committee recommended an experiment. In February of 1974, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) committed the Conservative Party, then in office, to having an inquiry. Of course that opportunity was denied us by the election which followed shortly after.
Two years ago this October the Government set up a committee and that committee has still not reported. The

committee consists of a number of distinguished police officers, lawyers, civil servants, and a representative of the Probation Service. For nearly two years it has had nothing to say, although it has had, as I understand, more than 12 meetings.
What great and weighty issue has delayed this committee of very intelligent and experienced people? What sort of detailed and complicated things has the committee had to consider, to weigh and to analyse for all this length of time? What mass of evidence has it had to read, to sift and to hear? The answer is hardly any, because the committee was not set up to decide whether we should have tape recorded interviews. but to decide whether an experiment to see whether we should have tape recorded interviews was feasible.
The decision whether we should have an experiment into the feasibility of tape recorded interviews could have been made at one sitting, after one week. Everyone with a ha'porth of common sense can see that it is feasible. Tape recorders exist: they do not have to be invented. They are cheap: little argument can be put against the experiment on the question of cost.
They can have sophisticated sealed cartridges. They are safes in police stations. Police officers are usually honest.
The purpose of a feasibility test is to see what effect it would have on confessions—whether they would be as easily challengeable as some of the critics have said, and how the technicalities would work out. Of course, there would be difficulties: the tapes could be altered; the accused could play the fool when being questioned. But no amount of theoretical difficulties should be a reason for not having a pilot scheme. That is the best way to find out whether the idea is bad or good.
The astonishing thing is that somewhere in the committee there is or has been some resistance. What the committee has in brains it seems to lack in will. My guess is that the police have been providing the stumbling block, because they have never been too sympathetic to this particular recommendation in the report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee.
I appeal to the Government to consider one aspect to which the police do not seem to be giving enough consideration. That is the substantial benefit to the image of the police themselves and also to law and order by having a feasibility scheme.
I should like to make two particular points. First, tape recordings are, on the face of it, an aid to truth. It looks bad if the police are seen to be opposing, without even a pilot scheme, an aid to truth. Secondly, as long as notebooks can be made up afterwards with no check on whether what is written in them is accurate or honest, and as long as the accused is not required by our law to sign as to the accuracy of the notebook record which the police officers have made, so long will juries too often doubt the integrity of the report and the honesty of mostly honest police officers.
The result of removing all argument about the verbals would be very considerable, and greatly add to the reputation of the police, because they would be less often challenged for dishonesty, and even less frequently found to be dishonest. If the circumstances in which confessions were made were less open to criticism, more of those who were guilty would plead guilty, cases would be shorter to try, trials would take place earlier after arrest, the memory of witnesses would have less time to fail, and their evidence would be more reliable. Occasionally the innocent would not be wrongly convicted.—[Interruption.] It is interesting to see that the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Kerr) is now with us, but I wish he would be quiet a little longer so that I may finish what I wish to say.
Occasionally a person who was guilty would not feel that the system was being bent against him merely because he was convicted as a result of oral evidence alleged against him which he did not consider to be the truth. The whole standing of the police force would rise, and with it its morale, and crime would therefore be easier to fight. Can the Government and the police not see the harm being done by refusing even an experiment?
I ask the Lord President to let us have some sense on this matter. If the police want the right to silence dropped, as a

quid pro quo, that is a matter which can be discussed later. But for the improvemen of respect for the police, for the decrease in the number of guilty persons who are acquitted, and to justify the high regard in which our legal system and our criminal law are held, let us have some action, and let us have it now. I call upon the Lord President to make an announcement.

7.7 p.m.

Mr. J. W. Rooker: I will say one thing for the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence): he certainly has a lawyer's way with words. We thought that his speech was to last 30 seconds. He must have been referring to my right hon. Friend turning him down in 30 seconds.
I shall not delay the House as long as I intended, because of the pressures being exerted on me at the moment. I suggest that the House should not adjourn until the end of next week so that we can have a Government statement, from whichever Minister is responsible—whether it be my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or, for that matter, the Secretary of State for Scotland—on the Government's view of the Cromarty Petroleum Order Confirmation Bill, which was debated in the House last Monday night.
The Bill has subsequently been blocked and will not be proceeded with until the blocking is withdrawn, or until you, Mr. Speaker, arrange time for us to debate the Report stage. The Bill ought not to be continued until the Government have come forward with a statement of their view.
There appears to be a commitment of £40 million of public expenditure involved in this private enterprise oil refinery. I do not object to the Bill in principle. I had not even heard of the place until I listened to the debate on Monday evening, when hon. Members on both sides of the House discussed the issue.
The refinery is apparently owned by a cancer research institute in Switzerland, which also controls a fleet of Liberian tankers. There is also some connection with Panama. It is hoped to build an oil refinery which, by common consent, is not required because of existing overcapacity.
We were told that the matter had been exhaustively investigated by Parliamentary Commissioners earlier this month in Edinburgh. We were told two nights ago that two full days had been spent by those Parliamentary Commissioners on the matter. Since then I have been to the Library and looked at the commissioners' brief report. On the first day they sat from 11 a.m. until 4.50 p.m. Allowing an hour for lunch, that is some five hours. On the second day they sat from 10.30 a.m. until 1 p.m. That is a total of seven and a half hours.
For some hon. Members, that may well be two full days' work, but certainly that is not what my constituents who work in industry in the West Midlands would consider to be two full days' work. There needs to be, therefore, a full report on what happened in Edinburgh on 3rd and 4th May this year. There needs to be a statement from the Treasury concerning its policy on the gathering of the corporation tax which may be generated from this oil refinery.
There is the point, of course, that if the oil refinery is owned by a cancer research institute in Switzerland which has charitable status, no profits from the oil refinery will ever reach the coffers of the Treasury to pay for the schools, roads and hospitals in this country. The profits will be diverted abroad.
The whole enterprise is owned by Dr. Ludwig, who has become the richest man in America, and the Americans have only just found this out. The long article in theNew York Tittles on 2nd May on this silent tycoon is evidence of the shock that the Americans have suffered at the discovery of this man. He is said to own the largest private estate in the Western hemisphere. It consists of 4 millon acres in the Amazon jungle, and 20,000 workers who are considered to be slave labour are employed to farm that jungle. They have no civil rights, and Brazilian Members of Parliament cannot visit their constituents who work on this vast estate. It is that sort of character and company—a £100 company called Cromarty Petroleum Company Ltd., an out and out bucket-shop operation of the first order—that is seeking the approval of £40 million of taxpayers' money to build a refinery.
I make no comment on the efficacy of the absentee landlord because I do not wish to be associated with advocating action in respect of Mr. Nightingale, who part owns the 47 acres to which the Bill refers. He appears to be not so much opposed to the purchase of his land as being after a piece of the action—a piece of the development.
There are others who are involved in this murky area in Scotland. I am thinking of Mr. John Robertson, who, in the late 1960s was sacked by the former Secretary of State for Scotland from the Highlands and Islands Development Board together with Mr. Thompson for disbursing public funds to companies over which they had control and in which they had an interest. Mr. Robertson is chairman of the finance committee and convener in Scotland of the local authority concerned. He owns land in the area surrounding the proposed refinery.
All those things, and many others that have come to light, call for a Government statement on the matter. It is no good my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland saying that he has to present the Bill because the 1936 Act governing private Scottish legislation requires that he present it and then refusing to say whether he supports the Bill and whether the Government have a commitment to it. That is not good enough.
The other night my right hon. Friend made two or three comments about making decisions in public. He said that it is well known to all what is at issue and that the decision letter of March 1976 is a public document. It was not in the Library two days after my right hon. Friend made his statement, and that is sufficient cause for concern.
What did or did not happen at Edinburgh is also cause for concern. The spending of public money is cause for concern. I represent a Birmingham consituency and I am receiving representations asking why I am trying to stop this project. This is the British House of Commons. I am a British Member of Parliament, not an English one. My constituents pay their taxes, as does everyone else. Disbursements from public funds, by whichever Department, be it the Scottish Office, the Welsh Office, or the Treasury, are a matter for concern.
My constituents contribute directly—not indirectly—to all public funds, and they therefore have a right to know how the Government stand on this issue. The Treasury is seeking to avoid the issue by saying that it will consider carefully the application for grant when it is received. As hon. Members know, in Scotland, as in other parts of the country, industrial investment automatically attracts Government funds. There is no right on the part of the Treasury to say "Yea" or "Nay" for the greater part of the funds: they come automatically.
For that reason, and others, we need a full Government statement next week so that the matter can be thought over during the recess by those outside the House who have a direct as well as indirect interest in whether the Cromarty Petroleum Order Confirmation Bill ever sees the light of day.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Michael Neubert: As the only other person present who served with the hon. Member for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore) on the Standing Committee considering the Companies (No. 2) Bill [Lords] perhaps I may be excused for making a brief reference to the hon. Gentleman's earlier contribution. I am sorry that he is not here now.
Without seeking in any way to defend Mr. Tiny Rowland—on the evidence, he is pre-eminently a man who can look after himself—I am not surprised that he made an abusive telephone call to the hon. Gentleman, because on the occasion of the hon. Gentleman's attack on Mr. Rowland in Committee I thought—and on second hearing I think now—that, while the hon. Gentleman talks about the privilege of the House, his attacks was an abuse of parliamentary privilege.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Let the House decide that.

Mr. Neubert: It was a set-piece, deliberate, calculated, sensation-seeking, headline-snatching exercise in synthetic demagogy, co-ordinated with the Minister and the representative of the Press Association. And again tonight, on cue, as soon the hon. Gentleman's name flashed on the screeen, members of the Press Gallery fluttered out of their dovecote and when the eruption had subsided

fluttered back again to leave the Gallery empty for the rest of the debate.
The hon. Gentleman on this occasion, as he did two years ago when he attacked the directors of Court Line, has cast himself as the self-appointed scourge of society's black sheep—a not very attractive or appealing rôle for the rest of us. If he is concerned with upholding the processes of the law, perhaps he will allow those processes to take their due course.

Mr. Russell Kerr: On a point of order. Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert), who is normally extremely courteous, but surely it cannot be right for an hon. Member to question the motives of another hon. Member in exercising, properly and to the full, his right as a Member of this House to have total privilege in respect of his speech. I do not think that is right. I think it was wrong that my hon. Friend could not be present to hear this attack upon him. I take it that the hon. Member for Romford did not give my hon. Friend warning of the attack that he was about to make on him. I protest most strongly, and I call upon you to declare the hon. Gentleman out of order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): The answer to the hon. Gentleman's point of order is that each and every hon. Member is responsible for what he says in this place. The only other comment that I might make is that it is the normal convention, if it is possible to do so, for an hon. Member to warn another hon. Member that his name might be mentioned in the course of the debate.

Mr. Neubert: As you may know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have been sitting on this Bench for just over four hours. For the greater part of that time I have been seeking to catch your eye. I am sure you will understand if I say that I did not wish my concentration to lapse by making a personal communication to the hon. Member for Luton, West. I should have thought that, having made such a provocative speech, he might have expected some reaction from other speakers and would have stayed, as I have done, to hear the outcome of his intemperate contribution.

Mr. Ioan Evans: rose—

Mr. Neubert: I must not be diverted from the argument.
The hon. Member for Luton, West would do better to allow the Director of Public Prosecutions to consider the cases of the directors of Court Line and Lonrho to come to his conclusions. Until then the hon. Gentleman will remain under suspicion of being highly unselective by not reserving any of his considerable venom for the black sheep of his own political persuasion.

Mr. Cryer: The hon. Gentleman is usually extremely courteous. I suggest to him that he should look at the Department of Trade's report—a report which his Government, under his Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Sid-cup (Mr. Heath), instituted. It makes a clear statement that Mr. Rowland threatened Angus Ogilvy and the Department of Trade inspector, carrying out a job which the hon. Gentleman's Government entrusted to him. Mr. Rowland used the most violent language. As Mr. Rowland has admitted making the telephone conversation in question, there is no doubt that there is a strong strand of evidence that he has behaved in a thuggish sort of way.

Mr. Neubert: The hon. Gentleman may hold that opinion and I do not challenge his right to do so. I shall spend part of the recess reading word for word the 660 pages of that report. But that does not mean that I go against the view that under the constitution of this country we have provided for the courts to consider such matters and that it is not for individual hon. Members to rush to judgment in the House.

Mr. Russell Kerr: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was trying to make the point that the hon. Gentleman is attempting to circumscribe the importantrôle of hon. Members in terms of their freedom of interrogation. It does no service to Parliament—and it is important to Parliament itself to defend this—for these types of attack to be made. I therefore suggest, with respect, that the hon. Gentleman is out of order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Any hon. Member—and I underline this—is responsible for what he says in this place provided that he is within the rules of order. I

consider that the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert) was in order.

Mr. Neubert: It is with a mixture of anger and sorrow that I rise to resist the adjournment for the Summer Recess. In the last parliamentary Session we passed no fewer than 73 Acts of Parliament and we passed a further 67 in the current Session, making 140 Bills enacted in all. We may all have our different opinions about the character of those Acts but Parliament has daily demonstrated that quantity is not always quality.
Why was time not found for a 10-clause, four-schedule Bill that would bring definite financial benefit to the United Kingdom? I refer to a Bill to permit the ratification of the European Patent Convention. That matter has suffered more than most from dilatoriness and delay in recent years. A Commit, tee was set up under Sir Maurice Banks in 1970 which reported in 1971, but we are still awaiting the results. That represents a breach of a Government commitment because in the White Paper "Patent Law Reform" published in April last year they promised that the appropriate measure would be brought forward in the current Session. But there is no sign of it.
An Early-Day Motion has been in existence for some time which calls on the Government to ratify the convention. That must be done by the end of this calendar year. I made the same point in a recent Adjournment debate. Time is the quintessence in this matter because if the convention is not ratified, serious consequences will follow for this country. The Government have brought forward much controversial and contentious legislation but here is a measure which would not cost money but make money. It would make money because patent agents in this country make considerable foreign earnings. Their invisible earnings are thought to be about £10 million a year.
If such a measure is not introduced we shall lose foreign currency. That is because if we do not become members of the convention patent agents will have to seek assistance from local agents in Germany. That will mean that money will flow out of the country in payment to those agents. British officials will not be able to play a prominent part in the


patent profession and we shall lose our leadership and influence in patent law.
For those reasons it is regrettable that the Government have not yet found time for such a measure. Hon. Members will imagine my chagrin when I found that it was not included in the business for the first week after the recess. Perhaps it will be announced for the first week of Lords business, and if that is so I shall be delighted. But if that is not so, I call upon the Leader of the House to reconsider. It is uncontroversial and uncontentious except to those hon. Members to whom the mention of the word Europe brings on a seizure.
Unless we are able to ratify the convention this year, the opportunity may be lost to us for all time to play our full part. Our ratification is not indispensable to the implementation of the convention by other countries who will be able to go ahead and to take advantage of our delay. I hope that that will not be so. Although it is not the most exciting of subjects to many hon. Members—and although it might not fire political blood or bring people to the barricades—if the Government want to encourage invention and innovation and if they believe in giving freedom to those who can earn prosperity for this country, this is a chance for them to act in a small way by bringing forward legislation as soon as possible.

7.27 p.m.

Mr. Robin F. Cook: The amendments which have not been selected and which were tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) and Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) call for the recess to be extended by one week and three weeks. My own request is for the Leader of the House to withdraw his motion and, in my characteristically modest way, to seek only one further day. I require that extra day for a full day's debate on the consultative document on transport policy which was produced four months ago. We should discuss the threat that that document poses to the rail network in Britain.
This is an appropriate time to consider the issue because only last week we completed the formal stage of consultations on the document. Two matters should cause anxiety about that period

of consultation. The four months have gone by without any debate in the House on the Green Paper. Secondly—and it is perhaps as well—many other organisations outside the House have taken the opportunity of the consultation period to put forward their own views in forceful and overriding terms because there was little consultation before the Green Paper was published.
Neither the unions nor the British Railways Board had the opportunity of either making comments on the Green Paper or seeing a draft before they read the Press accounts 24 hours before the publication of the document. It is an irony that the British Railways Board, through its subsidiary Transmark, is increasingly involved in other countries in development and design whilst at home it is impossible for it to get its own suggestions accepted by the British Government. I doubt that there is another country in the Western world where one would find a policy statement covering a major industry which was produced entirely internally by a Government without any consultation with either side of the industries affected by it.
The consequence of a White Paper being produced—which I fear might be done in the recess—would be disastrous for many hon. Members' constituents. That is because the document proposes that the future of certain passenger services will have to be reviewed.
The document says that the cuts suggested refer to only 6 per cent. of the passenger mileage. But when my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Bagier) asked the Secretary of State for the Environment to list those services which would be affected, we found that although they accounted for only 6 per cent. of passenger mileage, they comprised 45 per cent. of all the services at present run by British Rail. It took nine columns ofHansard simply to list the services facing closure.
If those services are closed it will mean that there will be no rail system north of Glasgow or Edinburgh, that the only service to Wales will be to Swansea and Holyhead, that there will be no rail system in Cornwall, that the only service left in East Anglia will be that to Norwich and that the only one left in the North-East will be to Newcastle. Such


closures would have a dramatic effect on many people and it is right for the House to insist on a further day's sitting to consider whether we are prepared to accept the social, environmental and economic consequences of such a decision.
Moreover, we have to say that it is a delusion to imagine that by cutting out the services which fail to show a profit we shall end up with a more profitable rail network. It is a delusion because all that will happen is that we shall lose the traffic at present fed into the main routes and the inter-city routes. It is also a delusion which obtains only in Britain. Britain is not unique in making a loss on its rail system. Every rail system in the world is making a loss at present. What makes us different is that we are the only country which is currently cutting back on investment in and expansion of a modern rail system.
We now have the ludicrous position that Britain, with five times the track mileage of Belgium and five times the population of Belgium, will be investing only the same amount as Belgium over the next decade.

Mr. Cryer: Scandalous!

Mr. Cook: The consequence of this scandalous cut in investment—as my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley so rightly calls it—will be that we shall have a less attractive service.
The major paradox of this consultative document is that, on the one hand, it proposes a cut in investment in services and, on the other, it exhorts the railways to achieve greater productivity. There is no way in which greater productivity can be achieved if the attempt to do so is accompanied by a reduction in investment.
There no longer is any great army of labour to be shed from the railway system. The manning of that system in Britain is at present at less than one-third of the level when the industry was nationalised. Over 400,000 jobs have been shaken out of the system over these three decades. There is no more room for a shake-out of spare labour, because every man is required.
The only way in which greater productivity can be achieved is through further investment. On the investment levels proposed, and endorsed by the consulta-

tive document, there would be a severe cutback in British Rail's investment in its future programme and equipment. It would mean, for instance, that over the next three or four years investment in locomotives would drop by a third. It would mean that investment for passenger rolling stock would drop by a third. It would mean that expenditure on modernising railway terminals would drop by half.
What would come out of this set of proposals would be a less attractive, less reliable and therefore less competitive railway system, which would in turn produce a drop in passenger mileage and passenger use which would, indeed, then justify precisely the kinds of closure proposed in this consultative document, which would become self-fulfilling. We should be left with a railway network that was no longer viable and competitive—a situation for which the Government have no mandate.
I am aware that my right hon. Friend may well feel that much of what I have said is applicable in particular to the Secretary of State for the Environment. I feel that I am carrying my right hon. Friend with me in some of my comments. I am sure that he shares my anxiety and will bear in mind these comments when the Government collectively consider issues in those committees of the Cabinet about which we are not supposed to know and which we cannot mention in this House. I should be grateful if my right hon. Friend would convey my remarks to the Secretary of State for the Environment.
I should also be grateful if my right hon. Friend would consider one point which will clearly fall within his jurisdiction. As I said, the House has not yet had a debate on the Green Paper. It will be very odd if the consultation about this consultative document does not extend to the House of Commons. I find it perfectly understandable that my right hon. Friend has been unable to provide any time for a debate during the past 12 months, which have been extremely busy months for this House. Nevertheless, it appears that we are to have a fairly lengthy spillover period on the other side of the recess.
I shall have spoken to some purpose if my right hon. Friend at least pencils in this suggestion of a day during the


spillover period when the House will have the opportunity to express a view on the follies of the Green Paper before it is reproduced in a White Paper.

7.35 p.m.

Sir Anthony Meyer: The Lord President must be beginning to feel that even if this debate will not achieve the three-week curtailment of the recess asked for by one of his hon. Friends, or the one-week curtailment asked for by another, it might at least by its length achieve the 24-hour postponement which has been asked for by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook).
Like a great many hon. Members, during the recess I shall be coming under a good deal of pressure from my constituent who will be asking me what I am doing to press the Government on this issue of unemployment which has already been touched on by a number of hon. Members. In particular, I shall be asked whether I am tabling Questions and so on. This is, therefore, my pretext for saying that this is an awkward moment for the House to be going away on recess.
The rate of unemployment in my part of the world, in North-East Wales, is now over 7½ per cent. In the Rhyl area it is rather more than double that. The Chancellor's cuts, however necessary—and I freely acknowledge that they are necessary—will make matters worse. The increase in regional employment premium for women, which sounds nice on paper, will not be much help to us in North-East Wales or in Wales as a whole because there are so few women in employment. On the other hand, the reduction in REP for men will have a directly adverse effect on employment in Wales. So also, to an extent which is hard to quantify, will the big increase in the employers' insurance stamp.
The job problem in North-East Wales is not just a result of the present slump and it is not something that will go away when the slump ceases. It goes deeper than that. The whole area, as the Leader of the House knows from his previous job, is far too dependent on three big employers, each of which has a major problem. There are 6,000 jobs at the British Steel Corporation plant at Shotton which are dependent on the long-post-

poned decision whether to keep steelmaking there. These 6,000 workers will be on tenderhooks while Parliament is on holiday. The outlook for Courtaulds, with its three plants in North Wales, is highly uncertain, and there is a crying need for much closer and more harmonious relations between management, unions and Government if these factories are not to drift into disaster with appalling consequences for the thousands working in them.
Workers at Hawker Siddeley at Broughton seem to imagine that their jobs will be safe after nationalisation. But the experience of steel and coal workers nearby, if they were to be consulted, would hardly bear that out. Moreover, there appears to be a risk that if the British aircraft manufacturing industry is nationalised it will concentrate production away from Broughton. It should not be forgotten that work on the Airbus wings, which is providing a great many jobs at Broughton, would never have gone there if the decision had been left to the British Government at the time. I do not believe that nationalisation will be good for jobs at Hawker Siddeley, any more than the new dock labour scheme will be good for jobs at Mostyn in my constituency.
There are limits to what a Government can do to help, even if Parliament were to sit through the whole of the summer. Empty, or nearly empty, advance factories in my constituency and in many others throughout the country bear grim witness to that. At least the Government ought to be under continuous pressure in Parliament to do what they can to help.
We must press that essential road communications go ahead, notably the dual-ling of the A55, running through my constituency. The Minister for Transport has today, in a rather cumbersome Written Reply, given full details of the impact of the cuts on the road programme throughout England. We still do not know what the effects of the cuts will be in Wales. I have been attempting today to find out from the Welsh Office what those cuts would amount to. It cannot tell me what they will be other than that the programme on the M4 is not to be interrupted in any way.
In the Rhyl area the tourist industry is the main provider of jobs. But the


tourist industry there gets no help at all since Rhyl is not in a development area. There are no grants for the hotel industry. When Rhyl takes steps to re-equip its principal industry by building an all-weather entertainments centre, the Government, far from helping, do their best to sabotage the scheme by stamping heavily on the fingers of those merchant bankers who came to help.
Things have now reached the point where, if North-East Wales is to get any more jobs, it must be given at least the same assisted status as the areas surrounding it. Because these other areas have full development area status they are sucking away jobs which might go to North-East Wales. I have long been, and I remain, sceptical of the positive benefits which come from development area status and suchlike.
I do not believe that North-East Wales can suffer any longer the handicaps resulting from not having the benefits which all the surrounding areas have, I do not believe that a decision on this can wait until October.

7.41 p.m.

Mr. Terry Walker: The subject I wish to raise, and the reason why I believe that the House should not adjourn tomorrow, is that of the aircraft workers at Bristol. It may well be that by the time we return to Parliament thousands of these workers will have become redundant.
The Filton aircraft workers are very reliant on the Concorde project. On the Consolidated Fund Bill some hon. Members opposite had given notice that they intended to raise the Concorde situation with the Government, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Industry was there to answer the debate at 10.30 a.m. today, but unfortunately Opposition Members were not here when the time came. Obviously, they were more concerned with being in their beds than with talking about Concorde and the problems of my constituents. This is a problem which has affected the Filton workers for many long days—since the 1960s, in fact. Had we had that statement this morning, there would have been some hope for those of my constituents who might well find themselves declared redundant before the House returns on 11th October.
My hon. Friends the Members for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas) and for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) and I met the BAC Filton shop stewards' committee last weekend to discuss the great problems facing them. Because of the attitude of the British Aircraft Corporation at Filton, it now looks as though 1,000 workers will be made redundant if further orders for Concorde are not given very soon. The company has given notice that this will happen.
I realise the Government's problem because the Filton works is far too reliant on Government money, given to prop up the Concorde project. BAC seems to be more interested in building Ills than in fighting for more money for Concorde. Everyone knows that the problem with Concorde is that we are prevented by the New York airport authority from landing in New York. Until this is resolved, there is little hope of Concorde sales being made throughout the world. This has been a problem with the two Concorde aircraft which the Shah of Iran was going to buy. He wants a categorical assurance that these aircraft will be allowed to land in New York. As the sellers of the aircraft, we cannot give that guarantee.
Most airlines have a surplus carrying capacity with their jumbos and they are waiting to see how British Airways and Air France make out with the traffic with the Concorde aircraft which are already in service. There is a need obviously for us to consider the problems of the world's airlines. This must be a matter of urgency in the Government's thinking.
Last Saturday when I met shop stewards at Filton we sought assurances that BAC would not be allowed to take any kind of action before the industry came into public ownership. We have already seen Lord Beswick about this, because it is important that the new corporation should come in at a time when it can consider the future of supersonic travel, which, I believe, is here to stay. The corporation will have to decide the size and future of the industry. Any action to jeopardise the size of the industry in the interim period, before we can name a vesting day, is to be deplored.
We have had problems with hybridity in getting the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill through. We have had the Report stage and the Third Reading and the Bill will now be discussed in anther place. I hope that it will not be too long before the vesting day is announced.
My purpose in raising this matter tonight is to impress on the Leader of the House the need for utmost consultation between the Department of Industry, the Department of Trade and the British Aircraft Corporation to ensure that my workers and those in Bristol as a whole are not faced with overwhelming redundancies. We are seeking to build a new corporation. I hope that this matter will be treated as one of great urgency by the Government.

7.47 p.m.

Mr. Keith Speed: I intervene at this stage, although I do not wish to curtail the debate in any way. The hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock got it right when he said that this debate was a regular ritual. If the Leader of the House accepted the general tenor of the remarks of Back Benchers in this debate, many of us, and our wives, would be very annoyed indeed. Most of us need some sort of a break. However, I quarrel with the members of the Press who suggest that, come tomorrow afternoon, we shall all go away for two and a half months' holiday. Many of us have a great deal of constituency work to catch up on and if we get as much as two weeks' holiday we shall be very fortunate indeed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) opened this debate by drawing attention to the vexed problems of Northern Ireland, which are still with us. He reminded us of the massive numbers of shootings and bombings which are still going on, and particularly the events in the seaside resort of Portrush the other night. He called for determined action, and he mentioned the fact that there is a new Chief Constable in Northern Ireland, whom we all wish well.
My hon. Friend said he thought that the law needed to be strengthened and that at times one despaired of the sentences passed and the compensation given to the widows and dependants of mem-

bers of the Armed Forces compared with that given to members of the Provisional IRA as a result of actions by our Armed Forces. I know that the Secretary of State is considering this matter very seriously, but it would be helpful if the Leader of the House would refer to it. We shall be away for two and a half months. That is a long time, in which anything might happen in the unhappy Province.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) had his fun at the expense of the trawler owners and the Opposition. He said the Government were negotiating from a position of supreme weakness. After the events with Iceland, I think that he is right, but before that occurred I believe that things were not as he said.
We had an interesting speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker). She had an important engagement which she had to attend, and I do not think she appreciated that the debate could go on as long as it has. She has asked me to make her apologies. She gave me a detailed chapter and verse of the dispute involving the junior hospital doctors. If her statements are accurate—and there is no reason to think that they are not—we need a full explanation from the Government about the situation before the House goes into recess.
There has been a catalogue of serious misunderstandings in recent weeks in which clearly the junior hospital doctors feel that they have been gravely misled by the Department and its Ministers. If my hon. Friend is right, as I think she is, we need action at a high level as quickly as possible to resolve this unfortunate dispute. I agree with her that industrial action in these circumstances is extremely unfortunate.
Hon. Members know how the waiting lists for operations and other hospital treatment are growing. I have a case, which I am pursuing with the Minister at the moment, concerning one of my constituents who has been waiting for an operation for seven years. I can get no information from the area health authority that she will not have to wait another seven years. That cannot be right.
We had some interesting speeches from the hon. Members for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore) and Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton). They are not in their places at the moment. I did not give them notice that I would raise this matter, because they have sat through the debate and I therefore presumed that they would be here.
The hon. Member for Luton, West gave details of what appeared to be a serious telephone call to his wife. I have a particular sympathy with him on one score. Our wives have to put up with a great deal, with all sorts of people, telephoning at all times of the day and night. That is particularly unfortunate. I cannot in any way condone that sort of thing. Our wives act generally as paid or unpaid secretaries, assistants, receptionists and everything else, particularly if one lives in or near one's constituency.
The hon. Member for Luton, West gave examples, which are on public record, of various conversations of Mr. Rowland with various eminent people, and I was struck by two points. First, the hon. Member is apparently joining a fairly select but important band of people who have been attacked by Mr. Rowland. Secondly, it is clear that Mr. Rowland is one of those people who tend to use rather extravagant language.
I was much more concerned about the speech by the hon. Member for Fife, Central. I presume, in view of the exchanges which took place with my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert), that my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) was given notice by the hon. Member for Fife, Central that the matter would be raised in the way that he raised it this evening. My right hon. Friend has been in this House this afternoon, and certainly in view of the language used by the hon. Member he should have given my right hon. Friend notice, although I have reason to believe that perhaps he did not.
The hon. Member referred—I noted his words—to the directors of Lonrho as being "a bunch of crooks". The directors of Lonrho include my right hon. Friend, and it would be interesting to see whether the hon. Member was prepared to repeat those remarks outside the House. I believe that my right hon. Friend and others might take a fairly

serious view of the allegation. The third thing which needs to be said—it was not mentioned this afternoon—is that Lonrho in recent weeks has saved 1,800 jobs in Newcastle. That is an area of high unemployment, and Lonrho's action there must go on the credit side.
Finally, I hope that the lion. Member felt better after he had made his speech in which, in a metaphysical sense, he sprayed bile around the Chamber. The speech showed that at least one hon. Member needs a holiday—and I suspect that the rest of us do as well. I think that it was a speech of which he will not be proud in years to come.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) made certain points about the control of heavy commercial vehicles. This is an important subject for local authorities and for many people living in various parts of the country. A campaign is being conducted in parts of East London, particularly in Hackney, concerning a road that I frequently use when travelling from the Blackwall Tunnel up to the Ml. It passes through residential side streets and I see from the Press that the local people are getting excited and are talking about blocking it.
That is precisely the sort of situation that my hon. Friend had in mind when he introduced his Bill. I was Under-Secretary at the time and I gave him a deal of help in getting it through the House. On 1st January 1977 the local authorities must submit their proposals to the Secretary of State for the Environment. Time is therefore not on their side.
We must get out of the fashion of not daring to raise the question of immigration in this House in a straightforward way. People are not Fascists or National Front supporters just because they are concerned about the lack of information. They are worried about the pressures on a few important areas in this country by what appears to the people living in those areas to be uncontrolled immigration. It is no good the Home Secretary or anybody else saying that there will be only 60,000 immigrants per year for the next three years and that after that we can sit back and relax. The point is that those 180,000 will be concentrated in a very few centres and will be putting


growing pressures upon such places as Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Bradford and Nottingham.
It is all right for those of us in the rest of the country who see this problem passing us by. Just look at the terrible row which broke out in Sussex when immigrants were put into a hotel after having arrived at Gatwick Airport! The people in Leicester, Wolverhampton and Birmingham had a wry smile. They told me that people had been complaining about this problem for a long time, yet hon. Members of all parties have not been prepared to take it seriously.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Eyre) was quite right to point out the problems caused by the Government's cutback in local authority expenditure. That highlights the urgency of the matter. Further cuts were announced only yesterday by the Secretary of State for the Environment at Question Time. The right hon. Gentleman is with us now. I hope that he is taking note of what is being said. Yesterday he told us about the money which would be cut from the rate support grant.
He will know of areas like Leicester, Wolverhampton and Birmingham which are having to cope with extra strains on social services, housing, education and the other facilities required to make life sensible and civilised. If thousands of additional people constantly come into these limited areas while the resources available to local authorities are cut back, surely it follows that the people living in those areas, whether black, white, khaki or in between, will have their standards cut.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken) was on to a very sound point. Even all this would be bearable if the people in those areas believed that there was a finity to the problem, but they do not trust any politicians. We have all been telling them that the problem will finish, but it never does. We do not do this House or ourselves any good by pretending either that the problem will go away or that in three years' time we can review it, when all the time conflicting figures are issued from different Government Departments.
We must get ourselves clear on this. We shall not secure harmonious race re-

lations in this country until we remove the fear of apparently untold masses who can still come in. I hope and believe that there are not untold masses still wishing to come here. Certainly it would not be in the interests of the immigrants already here, many of whom are in their second, third, fourth, or even fifth generations, that this fear should continue. It makes their lives totally impossible. A man may be as black as the ace of spades, but have a good West Midlands, West Riding or Cardiff accent, and be as much a part of Britain as anybody else.
But we shall not calm the fears of our fellow citizens until we accept that the country has its problems, that it is a densely-populated country and that there must be a finity to the problem. I hope that this matter will not explode during the recess, and it will help if the right hon. Gentleman will say something about it. I was in Leicester a fortnight ago and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that there are serious fears that are being latched upon and exploited by extremist political parties with which no one here would wish to have anything to do.

Mr. Cryer: I know that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to mislead the House by extravagant use of language when he talks about masses of people coming into this country. Will he acknowledge that as a result of a debate in this House a three-man tribunal—a Conservative MP, a Labour MP and a peer—is examining the possibility of drawing up a register of dependants. Should that not also be taken into account?

Mr. Speed: Such a register might be helpful. I suggested that one should be drawn up shortly after entering this House in 1968, but that alone will not solve the problem.
I do not wish to overstate the position, but on the Home Secretary's own figures we are talking about a population equivalent to that of Worcester or Bedford coming to this country every year. The Hawley Report and others show that we have an open-ended commitment, particularly because of the mathematical progression involved in the finance problem. If, as it seems, there is no finity to the numbers, many people will regard the number of immigrants as masses.
We are talking about thousands of immigrants going to a comparatively few areas that are already under great pressure. If the 60,000 immigrants could be dispersed throughout the country, say 1,000 to each county, things would be very much easier, but no one in this House would go along with that solution.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Hicks) raised the subject of unemployment, as he did in this debate last year. He was powerfully supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) and the hon. Member for Bedwellty. Replying to the debate last year, the previous Leader of the House said:
The hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Hicks) called attention to unemployment, particularly in his constituency. I share his concern. As I pointed out recently, two factors are responsible. One is world recession and the other is the level of inflation in this country, and there is the uncertainty which flows from them. The best way of combating unemployment is to combat inflation. If we achieve the objectives in our anti-inflation policy and if the upturn in world trade which we expect next year takes place, we can look forward to a deceleration in the rise in unemployment. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be making a statement next week during the Report stage of the Employment Protection Bill on the temporary employment subsidy and will give details of how it will work. I hope that that will be of assistance to the hon. Gentleman and others. In the autumn, if necessary, my right hon. Friend will be announcing more comprehensive measures to assist in the fight against unemployment."—[Official Report, 31st July 1975; Vol. 896, c. 2122–3.]
Unemployment is now up by 50 per cent. and there is a particular problem with young people. I can think of nothing worse than leaving school or technical college and starting adult life—which should be a time of looking forward to the first job and the first pay packet and exercising one's skills—as part of the dole queue. This is a serious problem that has clearly got substantially worse since last year, and we look forward to hearing what the Leader of the House has to say about it.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) made some interesting comments on the vehicle licensing centre at Swansea and on cherished number plates. The centre has not been the great success for which we had all hoped. This is a topical subject because there have been a number of Press reports that the Chan-

cellor of the Exchequer intends to replace the vehicle excise duty with a fuel tax, which will result in a reduction in the number of Civil Service jobs. I do not know whether these reports are accurate, but they must be extremely unsettling for these employees at Swansea and for those trying to plan in this country's motor industry.
Such a move will undoubtedly have a considerable influence on motor design. This country is fairly strong on cars in the medium and high petrol consumption range and not so strong in the low petrol consumption range. We shall have to wait two or three years for the Mini replacement while the Imp is being phased out, and the Ford Fiesta is a multinational car. The addition of 20p a gallon on petrol in place of the excise duty would hit the British car industry hard.
My hon. Friend the Member for Romford referred to the ratification of the European Patent Convention, and on the time scale that he mentioned this is an urgent matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), with his great legal experience, spoke about the need for an experiment of tape-recording police interviews with suspects. It seems extraordinary that we should have been waiting years for such an experiment. The sooner it gets under way, the better for all concerned.
The House has again sat late into August, despite the fact that a year ago the previous Leader of the House said that he hoped we should be able to finish early. There is a widespread feeling in the House and throughout the country that Parliament is trying to pass far too much legislation. Much of it is ill-digested and is not improved by guillotines, particularly on five contentious and complicated Bills.
I have read reports that the Law Society is extremely concerned about this situation. Lawyers and accountants are in the front line and have to advise clients and customers on how the law is to work. If there is no time for proper debate, it is difficult for them to see what Parliament is even trying to get at, let alone for them to suggest sensible amendments.
Things have gone wrong even on Bills that have not geen guillotined. The Water Bill passed by my party two or three


years ago is one example. If it can happen on a Bill like that, how much more danger is there of land mines in guillotined Bills?
The one argument in favour of the devolution Bill in the next Session is that we shall get bogged down in such a morass that there will be little time for other Bills. I can see no other advantage and I agree with those hon. Members who say that if there is any attempt to introduce a guillotine it will not get through. I suspect that by the middle of next year we shall be climbing up the wall at the mention of devolution.
The grave problems that we face cannot be solved by passing an increasing number of Bills, as some people seem to believe. Those who consider that Parliament is an enormous sausage machine that should turn out legislation and that the productivity of Governments should be measured by the number of Bills they produce are wrong. The country needs less legislation. Let the people get on and thrive and prosper. The more we try to intervene, the worse we make things. I am impressed by the fact that Germany thrives and prospers with far fewer Bills.
If that message gets through to the Government and we have a large reduction in the number of Bills next Session, this long hot parliamentary summer will not have been in vain.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. Max Madden: The hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed) indicated that he did not want to curtail the debate and I hope that the Leader of the House and my hon. Friend the Member for Lambeth, Central (Mr. Lipton), who is waiting to speak, will forgive me if I take just a moment to add my voice to those who say that we should not adjourn tomorrow. The Lord President is, I suppose, the most sought after and most despised Minister of the Government. He is badgered and pilloried by Members pressing him for time to discuss all sorts of issues.
If nothing else, he and we can do ourselves a good turn if we do something about reforming the recesses and their timing in the parliamentary year. I hope that the Lord President will address himself to the possibility of trying to reform the Summer Recess in the interests of

those with families who find the present arrangements highly unsatisfactory, and to rearranging the year to accommodate the views of the majority of Members who see no reason for the way in which we organise our affairs.
I should like to say a few words about the severe difficulties and uncertainties still shrouding the industry which plays an important part in my area of West Yorkshire—the textile industry. Those difficulties are severe. There is a continuing climate of anxiety and uncertainty that only the Government can dispel. I hope that we shall have early indications from the Government of their attitude to a number of important issues causing great anxiety to the textile industry.
We should like clear information on the negotiating posture of the Government to the renegotiation of the GATT Multi-Fibre Arrangement. In particular, we should like to know whether the Government will adopt a tough attitude in the talks to secure the safeguards that the textile industry needs.
Secondly, there is great uncertainty about dumping and the legalisation affecting it. We are also concerned about what will happen to the ability urgently to pursue complaints about dumping when the responsibility for these matters is passed to Brussels and the EEC Commission. Those powers pass to Brussels next July. We want information about the machinery that the EEC Commission proposes to establish to investigate dumping complaints.
Thirdly, there is great anxiety and uncertainty about the extension of the wool textile scheme. An announcement has been eagerly awaited for some little while now. We have been told that a statement will be made soon. But that will not clear away the uncertainty and doubts which this unresolved matter creates in the minds of those responsible for planning investment and for planning the future of the textile industry.
We want to know how much more money will be made available to the wool textile industry by way of the scheme. We want to know what effect investment will have on capacity. We are concerned lest there will be a distinct lack of investment in the industry when the improvement in trade arrives. We are also worried


about the possible shortage of skilled workers when the improvement in trade arrives.
While I am commenting on the amount of public investment within the textile industry, I think that it is also apposite to raise an important matter of considerable concern to many of us with an interest in the textile industry—the Government's highly preferential loan of £5 million to a subsidiary of Lonrho to acquire Brentford Nylons. The hon. Member for Ashford cited this example as something to the credit of Lonrho. We must all be worried about employment and maintaining employment, but a number of highly topical questions surrounding the advance of this public money to a subsidiary of Lonrho ought to have been carefully scrutinised by Parliament. We should have had an opportunity—an opportunity which has been denied—to discuss that matter.
Many of us believe that such advances ought not to have been made to this subsidiary at a time when Lonrho was still the subject of detailed investigation. We are gravely concerned that the Department of Trade does not have a stake or did not seek wholly to acquire Brentford Nylons, which many would have favoured, rather than to make a £5 million loan to a subsidiary of Lonrho. That would have been a way of demonstrating that public money and public investment have a rôle within the textile industry
I am sure those of my hon. Friends who represent textile constituencies are auxiously awaiting injections to public funds via the National Enterprise Board into the textile industry. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) has always advocated that the NEB should be able to acquire specialist firms in the textile industry as a way of maintaining employment and creating a situation by which we can combat the effects of the handful of powerful companies that dominate the textile industry.
Many of us find it incredible that the Government should have found it possible to advance public money to this Lonrho subsidiary almost simultaneously with the publication of the Department of Trade's report on Lonrho, which revealed many grave matters.
This House has heard a most extraordinary indictment of this company and its directors and has heard even more extraordinary revelations about the activities of Mr. Rowland from my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgmore). The report exposes the sanctions-busting against Rhodesia, massive retrospective expenses, senior ex-Tory politicians exploiting tax havens, and many other extremely serious matters.
We must reflect that this matter came to light only as a result of a boardroom battle—an accident of circumstance—which, if it had not occurred, we should have known nothing about. Therefore we must reflect that these matters often come about by accident—for example, by someone going into bankruptcy, as happened recently, when another startling revelation came to public view.
The report on Lonrho from the Department of Trade reads like a Hollywood film script. It has been described as the unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism. Anyone who takes the trouble to read this enormous volume on Lonrho will view it as an unbelievable record of what is wrong with far too much of British business.
It raises important issues that we should be discussing in the House as a matter of urgency. It raises important issues about the reform of company law—issues that ought to be tackled immediately before the House goes into recess.
I conclude by expressing my sympathy with the Lord President, who has once again laid himself open to our appeals, pillories, moans and groans. It is not the first time that he has sat patiently listening to debates of this sort.
I shall end with my original appeal to him. I believe that he can do us all a good turn by addressing himself to the ways in which we can do away with what my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) described as this exercise in hypocrisy, which is outdated and which can be abolished to help not only Parliament but our constituents in pursuing important matters in England in a more intelligent and reasonable way.

8.19 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Lipton: I am not going to follow the


example of the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed) by going over all the speeches made by all the hon. Members who have taken part in this debate. On the other hand, I am not seeking any preferment in the unlikely event of any Conservative Government coming to power. I shall confine myself to one sentence regarding Lonrho.
Whenever Lonrho is mentioned it always surprises me that Opposition Members are willing to leap to its defence and to pretend that all is well. I am content to leave the matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions to conduct the investigation and to bring the fellows concerned to book.
I shall mention only two matters of domestic interest. The first concerns the plight of Big Ben. I am sorry that all we have to rely on so far are Press statements. We know that Press statements cannot always be relied upon. Between now and the time when we come back I should like an official statement about what has happened and when Big Ben is likely to resume its activities.
At the moment it is on strike because it is not striking. We hope that it will be in full bloom before we are very much older. I want the Lord President to promise that an official statement will be made, because Ben is the most loved object in London. The chimes of Big Ben go all round the world. They were a source of inspiration during the last war, just as they are at present.
The second point concerns New Palace Yard. For a day or two the fountain in New Palace Yard was in full spate and then it went out of action. I am informed that it went out of action because the pump installed for the purpose of making the fountain work was found to be not only inadequate but too small. A hole was dug and a lot of men stood round the hole and looked down. That is all that happened. The hole was filled up again.
I should like to know when the new pump will be installed so that the fountain can be put into full operation. It is ridiculous that money should have been spent and the fountain should not be working at a time when there are many tourists in Westminster. Both the fountain and Big Ben, in full working order, are useful additions to the amenities of the Houses of Parliament.

8.22 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): The House has had an extensive debate on this motion—probably longer than we have had on similar occasions. I hope that the House will excuse me if I try to reply fairly briefly to what has been said and if, in doing so, I do not go into all the merits and demerits of the various arguments. How ever, that is not my obligation. After all, although some hon. Members have developed the merits or the demerits of their arguments, it does not alter the fact that we are discussing whether we should depart for the Summer Recess. Therefore, I shall try to relate all my replies to that specific matter. I shall try to keep to the order of those who spoke in the debate but I may stray in some particulars.
The hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) raised matters that we all recognise are of great importance for the people concerned and for the constituency that he represents. Recent events there have underlined the significance of what he said. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland told the House, threats have been made of increased violence in Northern Ireland both in the prisons and on the streets with the aim of deflecting Her Majesty's Government from their policy of ending new admissions to special category status in the prisons.
The Provisional IRA has carried out a number of attacks, including the killing of a soldier and the bombing of the main street in Portrush. More troubles must be expected in the period leading up to 9th August, which is the anniversary of the day that internment was introduced in Northern Ireland. Internment or detention is no longer an issue in Northern Ireland, but the Provisionals and others are bent on making use of that day as an excuse for stirring up trouble. They hope thereby to persuade the Government to change their mind over special category status. They will not succeed in their purpose. The security forces are ready to deal with any eventuality that may arise. The Government, for their part, intend to stand firm on their policy of phasing out special category status for convicted


prisoners, just as they stood firm on ending detention.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to the adequacy of the law as it stands. I have nothing to add to what was said by the Attorney-General at the end of a debate on that subject a few weeks ago. However, I assure the hon. Gentleman, as I have assured him on previous occasions, that the Government are determined to sustain their policy in Northern Ireland. I hope that what I have said will be of some assistance to the hon. Gentleman and to those on whose behalf he has properly raised this matter.
I turn now to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) who, like some other hon. Members, has had to depart. I make no complaint. Perhaps I might comprehensively acknowledge those who have apologised for having had to leave the debate, though they say that they will read inHansard what I have to say.
I fully acknowledge what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central about fishing policy. If his advice and that of others had been taken long ago, we might not have had to face quite the same difficulties. But the difficulties must be faced. The decisions were made by others and we must deal with the difficulties that arise in consequence. I agree with my hon. Friend's repudiation of the attacks made by the British Trawlers Federation.
The hon. Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) referred to the negotiations which are still taking place between the junior hospital doctors and the Department of Health and Social Security. I cannot accept any of her statements about the Government having departed from the undertakings that were given and the agreements that were made. I repeat, the negotiations are still proceeding. It would not be sensible for me to make comments on the negotiations. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for appealing to the junior doctors not to resort to any industrial action and not to continue industrial action in areas where that is taking place. I hope that that advice will be followed. We do not believe that there is any excuse for their resorting to that kind of action to press their claims.
The hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) referred to the Heavy Commercial Vehicles Act. I commiserate with him on missing the debate at 5 o'clock this morning because of a technical procedural point. But the Under-Secretary of State was present and, on a point of order, told the hon. Gentleman that if he submitted to the Department the points that he intended to make, he would get a detailed reply. I am sure that is the best course for him to follow.
The hon. Members for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Eyre) and Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken) asked for further statements on immigration. I do not think that it would be sensible or wise for any further Government statement on immigration to be made in this kind of debate. There was a debate on immigration on 24th May and again for a full day on 5th July, when the House did not divide on the matter. I appreciate the importance that everyone naturally attaches to immigration, but we have had two recent very full debates, and a parliamentary group, under the distinguished chairmanship of Lord Franks, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer), has been set up to look at the idea of establishing a register of dependants. I think that it is much better that we should await the group's reply rather than make comments in general terms which might be misleading.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans) asked that we should look afresh at the whole question of the way in which the procedures of the House are organised. I shall come later to the question that he and others raised about the Lonrho affair. Others have referred to the procedures of the House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden).
We have set up a Procedure Committee, representative of Members of the House who have had experience and including Members who are extremely eager to see drastic reforms made in our procedures. That Committee will report. It may take some time to do so. If it has to deal with the whole question of reorganising the timetable of the House—I am not talking about guillotine motions or anything of that fashionable nature, but about the whole timetable generally—that will take


a considerable time to examine. However, I am sure that that will be one of the matters that will enter into all its discussions.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare said that he greatly regretted that we have not had a debate on South Africa and the appalling events taking place there, particularly in the light, perhaps, of news that we have had in the last day or so, or even this morning. I fully accept that it would have been advantageous if we could have had such a debate on the subject. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House are eager to make it quite clear with what horror they view many of these developments. We must seek a chance of raising this matter at a fairly early date when we return.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) raised the question of Mr. and Mrs. Rabkin. The Foreign Office has made repeated representations at the highest level, both here and in Pretoria, demanding that the normal civilised right of consular access be granted to Mr. and Mrs. Rabkin. We have told the South Africans of the deep concern felt in Parliament and in the country generally. An embassy official was able to visit Mrs. Rabkin on 3rd August and confirmed that she had no complaints about the material conditions of her detention, but we continue to press for consular access to Mr. Rabkin—and to Mr. Patrick Weach, who, we have recently learned, is also detained in South Africa. I shall see that my hon. Friend's comments on the matter are conveyed to the Foreign Office. We shall certainly not relax any efforts to do whatever we can to assist in the situation.
The hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Hicks) referred particularly to the unemployment situation. I shall return to that matter shortly. He referred especially to the unemployment of school leavers. The hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed) referred back to what was said a year ago on this subject.
We took steps a year ago to assist in the situation. If those steps had not been taken then, the position would have been even worse. I remember very well the debates that we had a year ago on the subject. When we announced the

temporary employment subsidy, for example, some sceptical questions were raised whether it would have much effect. However, I think that most people would agree that it was a measure well worth introducing. The same was true of the school leaver subsidy that we had last year, which has been improved this year. That is also well worth having. The job creation schemes are well worth having.
But, of course, we acknowledge that all these measures together, and the further measures we are proposing—the work experience proposals and the extension of training schemes—although we have done this on a bigger scale than ever before, are not sufficient to deal with the full scale of the unemployment problem. Our solutions must depend very much more on how the whole economic policy of the country can be developed.
I come now to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and the matters that he raised about the Health and Safety Commission and its operations. I hope that he will excuse me if I do not go into great detail about those matters. I assure him that we, and the whole House, are most grateful to him for the vigilance that he shows on this subject. It helps to ensure that the Department of Employment and the Health and Safety Commission are kept constantly on the watch how they can improve the way in which they are operating.
My hon. Friend has raised the question of his Weights Bill on a number of occasions, but I cannot give him any better answer, from his point of view, from that which he has received previously. That is that to allow the Bill to go forward would be an encroachment on the responsibilities of the Health and Safety Commission and would be contrary to our objectives of bringing a co-ordinated approach to the problems of health and safety and the review of existing legislation.
I think that my hon. Friend will agree that, along with the development of the inspectorate and the assurance that we shall try to sustain that despite all the difficulties of economies, and so on, one of the most important developments that we must carry forward is the establishment of the safety committees, through


the trade unions. That is one of the ways in which we shall be able to try to ensure that the improved regulations and the improved propositions under the health and safety legislation are properly translated into effect.
The Home Secretary appointed a committee in 1975 to look into the feasibility of using tape recorders in interviews with the police. It is true, as the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) said, that there has been considerable delay. The committee is chaired by an Under-Secretary in the Home Office and its membership is representative of a broad spectrum of the police and the Bar. It has had 12 meetings and at its meeting on 12th December it approved a draft report which will shortly be submitted to the Home Secretary. He has undertaken that it will be published as soon as possible. The hon. Gentleman should be gratified by that answer. Had he wished to elicit that answer earlier, he might have done so by a Question or a Private Notice Question during the last few weeks or months, but I well understand that he thinks he gets better answers from me than from any other member of the Government.
As for my hon. Friends who raised the subject of the Cromarty Petroleum Order Confirmation Bill, I cannot add to what was said by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland in the debate on Monday. I recognise the concern which has been expressed in many quarters and I shall see that the suggestions made by my hon. Friends are passed to the Ministers concerned. It may be that there is nothing further we can add to what has been said and anything further will have to be said when a fresh debate is arranged soon after the House returns.
The hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert) asked that we should proceed speedily with legislation on patents. At the same time as hon. Members are saying that we should not have too much legislation, they put forward their own propositions for legislation. I do not wish to depreciate the importance of the measure for which the hon. Gentleman asks. Unfortunately, it has not proved possible to find a place for the Patents Bill in the programme for this Session. I hope that we shall be able to find room for a comprehensive Patents Bill in the

programme early in the next Session. I shall do all I can to ensure that the Bill reaches the statute book as soon as possible and that it will fulfil the requirements to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook) has had to depart for Edinburgh. I fully understand why he stressed the importance of a full debate on transport policy before we proceed to the further development of the Government's policy. He expressed his anxieties in strong terms. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment will take full account of what he said. We understand that there must be a major debate on transport and the extremely important issues affecting the jobs of railwaymen and others employed in the industry. We recognise the importance of ensuring that we debate the matter properly before proceeding to action.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Walker) spoke of the anxieties of aircraft workers about what might happen before the provisions of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill are put into effect. I have done my best to get the Bill through the House of Commons, and the sooner we get it on to the statute book the better. Of course, I believe that those concerned must take account of the desire of the House to ensure that no decisions are taken which might prejudice the future.
As on previous occasions, my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby referred to the textile industry, about which he expressed anxiety. The Government recognise the concern expressed by him and others about low-cost clothing and textile imports. I wish to remind my hon. Friend that we have now more extensive restraints on imports than ever before. The most recent measure involved restraints on some imports from South Korea.
We are always prepared to consider further measures where these can be justified under the terms of the multifibre arrangement and to consider action against imports under the anti-dumping legislation where there is evidence of dumping. I appreciate that there are sometimes difficulties in applying those tests, but I am sure that my hon. Friend will continue to press this matter. I


am also sure that we shall deal with the situation satisfactorily. However, that does not remove the likelihood of more general discussion of those questions, and I believe that we shall have to have those discussions.
I turn to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore). He was entitled to make those remarks. Far from rushing into claims about privilege, he was saying the opposite. If his allegations are justified and correct—as I would expect them to be if they come from my hon. Friend—they would appear to raise questions of privilege in one form or another. It is true to say that my hon. Friend did not seek to raise them in that way, but threats to Members of this House in an effort to persuade them from carrying out their parliamentary duties are the clearest kind of breach of privilege there can be.
Many of us think that we should be chary in applying privilege claims because we do not want to use that procedure in a way that interferes with the rights of people to exercise free speech. However, if such a campaign as my hon. Friend suggests were to be continued, there is no doubt that it would trespass on the privilege of the House. My hon. Friend warned the House that he was not prepared to accept such things lying down, and he was entitled to speak as he did.
On the Lonrho affair generally, there has been a recent debate in the House, and I understand that it was an extremely good one and raised matters of considerable importance for the House and the country generally. It may be that at some stage—and I understand that there are still some legal proceedings involved—we shall conduct a much fuller debate on the subject. I would not exclude that possibility.
I turn to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton), who also has had to depart from the Chamber—and I do not blame him. I shall not go into the subject of devolution, even though the hon. Member for Ashford invited me to comment on that matter. Once we have carried through the full devolution measure, it

will relieve the House of many matters, which will then be debated elsewhere. That is one of the purposes of devolution.
The Houghton Report to which my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central referred, will soon be published and the House will then have to decide what to do about it. My hon. Friend drew a sharp contrast between the attitude of some people in regard to their support of political parties, and he made various quotations from theWestern Morning News. I shall not comment further on my hon. Friend's references to devolution. We shall have a chance to return to that subject at a fairly early date—although not, I trust, immediately.

Mr. Aitken: rose—

Mr. Foot: I should not give way. It would greatly lengthen the debate if I were to give way too frequently.
I have tried to cover pretty well all the speeches. I have not referred to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock), who raised the extremely important question—in some respects, it is the most important question which faces the country—of the menace of unemployment and how we can overcome it. I do not propose to comment in detail on what my hon. Friend said about the proposed job swap scheme. It has been put forward only in a tentative fashion. It is not intended to deal with the full range structural problems referred to by my hon. Friend. However, it is an important experiment which could assist us in dealing with similar problems in future. Hon. Members will wish to deal with questions of unemployment as soon as the House resumes after the recess. Unemployment must be the major preoccupation of the country until we have succeeded in greatly reducing the numbers.
I conclude with a word or two about those who imagine that some of the difficulties we have experienced in this Session have been uniquely due to the Government introducing legislation or even to a Leader of the House who occasionally, in the last extremity, has been forced to introduce guillotine motions. That is not the case. The House of Commons has had this experience on many


occasions. The other day I read a sentence in Disraeli's "Lothair":
It was August, and town was thinning fast. Parliament still lingered, but only for technical purposes; the political struggle of the session having terminated at the end of July.
I conclude by congratulating all right hon. and hon. Members who have not merely participated in the struggles which have ended in July but have survived the "technical purposes" of this debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House at its rising tomorrow do adjourn till Monday 11th October.

OFFICERS OF THE HOUSE (RETIREMENT)

8.48 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I beg to move,
That this House, conscious of the ever increasing range and complexity of its work and of the burden this places on its officers and staff, records its gratitude for the devoted service of Sir David Lidderdale, Clerk of the House; Sir Alexander Gordon Lennox, Serjeant at Arms; and Mr. David Holland, Librarian; and extends to them its best wishes for their retirement.
It is not often that a motion appears on the Order Paper which has to it not only the names of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition but the name of myself. We are following the custom and tradition of formally paying tribute to servants of the House on their retirement.
Not only has Sir David Lidderdale been Clerk of the House for a number of years but he has served in the House since 1934. Among the many distinguished services which he has performed has been that of editing the Nineteenth Edition of "Erskine May". Not only did that edition break all records in terms of the cost of the publication but it embraced all the problems which arise from our entry to the European Economic Community. That is only one of the services which Sir David has performed for the House. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will wish to pass the motion in gratitude to him.
Mr. David Holland joined the Library staff in 1946. He became Librarian in 1967. Hon. Members recognise that the service that the Library provides to hon. Members has been greatly extended, and the Librarian has played a leading part in ensuring that it has been highly beneficial to hon. Members.
Sir Alexander Gordon Lennox has been Serjeant at Arms in this House since 1962. I am sure that hon. Members were sad that he had to retire early because of illness. They will be glad to know that he is out of hospital and off to Scotland for a holiday. I am sure that we wish him every success in his retirement.
Perhaps I might conclude by saying, not only in respect of these three distinguished servants of the House but in


respect of all the others who serve us in this House, that the servants of the House perform their services not merely for Government or Opposition Front Benchers, because it is Back Benchers more than anyone who are dependent on the services of the Clerk and his assistants and of the other servants of the House—the Librarian and the staff of the Library in particular. One of the reasons why the House of Commons is able to sustain the best of its traditions is that the Clerks of this House and all those who come into the Clerk's Department enable Members, very soon after their arrival here, to discover that they have at their disposal a unique contribution to our whole system of democracy.
I believe, therefore, that the whole House will join in wishing to pass this motion.

8.51 p.m.

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher: This is one of those rare occasions when I can say to the Leader of the House that I heartily concur in all that he has said. On behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I join him in supporting this motion. My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) has asked me to say that he, too, wishes to be warmly associated with it. He is in fact present, but he does not wish to delay the House by making a separate contribution of his own.
The Leader of the House has said most of what could be said about the Clerk of the House, the Serjeant at Arms and the Librarian. However, perhaps I might add one or two comments of my own.
The Clerk of the House has been most generous in his advice to the Opposition, which is quite right, because his services are to the House rather than to the Government of the day. He has always given us very freely of his advice, and he has had a particularly difficult time in the past year when in some ways we have been adding footnotes to his edition of "Erskine May" at a rather more rapid rate than usual. I know, too, that he will wish us especially to make mention of the Report made by the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bottomley), to which he made a particularly notable contribution. He and

his Department have also warmly supported the activities of the CPA and of the IPU.
I want also to say how very grateful we are to Sir Alexander Gordon Lennox for the tremendous improvements which have been brought about during his period of office in the facilities of Members of the House. Some may still grumble that they are not very good, but they are very much better than when he first assumed office. Although we have had recent complaints about the telephone system, it is a very much better one than when he first took over. He has also had a very difficult time with the additional security precautions which we all have to take these days, yet he has been able to carry these out and still keep the greatly prized accessibility to the public of this House.
To Mr. David Holland, the Librarian, I say a special warm word of thanks, especially from Opposition Members who do not have quite as many facilities as Government supporters. We have one of the best library and research services now available in the whole country. The courtesy of the staff, and the speed with which they meet our requests are very notable. We would like to pay a warm tribute to them.
Perhaps one of the most frustrating things in life is to do work extremely well and yet be taken for granted. The Officers of the House are often taken for granted, and we do not thank them enough for everything they do to keep the wheels of democracy going. Therefore, we feel strongly that we should just turn aside for one moment from the legislative machine to say "Thank you" to them for all that they have done while they have been with us.
We hope that we shall see them again from time to time because I am sure that this place is such a fascination and magnet that they will wish to visit us occasionally to see how we are getting on. We wish them very well in their retirement.

8.56 p.m.

Mr. David Steel: I do not think that this is an occasion when we need have a long series of formal speeches. However, there are not many occasions on which the Leader of the Liberal Party can


claim that the Lord President and the Leader of the Opposition have said everything for him, and more adequately than he could say it. On this occasion I am happy to join the Government and Opposition in saying on behalf of my colleagues in the Liberal Party, and, I suspect, on behalf of the other minority parties of this House as well, how much we wish to place on record our thanks for those services which have been rendered by these three distinguished servants of the House.
Although the Leader of the House was quite right, I consider that the Government and the official Opposition are very capable of looking after themselves. In my experience of the House of Commons, those of us who are outside those ranks are in a sense most appreciative of the services that the staff are able to render to Back Benchers in all parts of the House.
If I may add one personal note, Sandy Gordon Lennox started a custom a few years ago as a result of which he acted in subsequent years as host to the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on his visit to London. It has become a charming custom. The successor Moderator stayed at the Serjeant at Arms' residence in this House. Indeed, my father occupied that position a year ago and spoke warmly of the hospitality extended to him within the Palace of Westminster. They will miss him. I believe that they have paid their own tribute to our former Serjeant at Arms.
I would simply add that we in the Liberal Party also appreciate the work

of all Officers of the House in the Library, the Clerk's Department, the Serjeant at Arms' Department and the rest. I am sure that the Leader of the Opposition was right to say that very often we tend to take them for granted. It is fitting, as we are close to the Summer Recess, that we pay a tribute to them all.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): Mr. Speaker has asked me to read the following statement:
The Deputy Speakers and I wish to associate ourselves wholeheartedly with this motion. No formula can measure the debt this House owes to those who give it their unstinted and loyal service. It is no exaggeration to say that this House functions as well as it does only because we are able to rely on those who uncomplainingly tolerate hours of service that few, if any, other people are called upon to endure.
Sir David Lidderdale, Sir Alexander Gordon Lennox and Mr. David Holland have retired from the service of the House after long years of distinguished and honourable service.
Those of us whose responsibility it is to preside over the House owe each of them a special measure of gratitude and we wish them every blessing in their retirement.—George Thomas.

Question put and agreed to, nemine contradicente.

Resolved,
That this House, conscious of the ever increasing range and complexity of its work and of the burden this places on its officers and staff, records its gratitude for the devoted service of Sir David Lidderdale, Clerk of the House; Sir Alexander Gordon Lennox, Serjeant at Arms; and Mr. David Holland, Librarian; and extends to them its best wishes for their retirement.

DROUGHT BILL [Lords]

Considered in Committee.

[Mr BRYANT GODMAN IRVINEin the Chair]

Clause 1

PROVISION FOR MEETING WATER SHORTAGES—GENERAL

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 2, leave out lines 3 to 7.

The Deputy Chairman: It will be convenient to discuss at the same time the following amendments:

No. 26, in page 3, line 4, leave out subsection (6).

No. 31, in page 3, line 15, leave out subsection (7)

Mr. Page: Those two amendments are consequential.
Under Clause 1(1) the Secretary of State is empowered to make an order making
such provision authorised by this section as appears to him to be expedient".
As we know from the Second Reading debate, the Secretary of State can exercise that power only on application from the water authority concerned. The authorised provisions appear in subsection (3). Amendment No. 1 is to paragraph (b), which says that one of the authorised provisions can be
'provision authorising the authority to prohibit or limit the use of water for any purpose specified in the order".
But it then goes on to say that the purpose must be one of those prescribed in the direction of the Secretary of State.
The Minister for Planning and Local Government said on Second Reading that that phrase did not mean what it said. It is rather an unfortunate phrase here. The right hon. Gentleman said that what he meant by it was "designated" rather than "directed". This is not the first time that I have, kindly and amicably, accused the right hon. Gentleman of being a

Humpty Dumpty—not from a physical point of view: I am sure that he would have it back on me if I were to say that. But it was Humpty Dumpty who said, in a scornful tone,
When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean.
In this subsection we take the words "prescribed…in a direction" to mean "designated".
There is no legal force in the direction. Thus, there is no question of the water authorities having to obey that direction. All it means is that the intention is that the Secretary of State sets out a list of items which can, if a water authority asks, be included—I suppose either the whole lot or any one item—in an order giving authority to the water authority to apply prohibition of that sort.
On Second Reading—col. 1746, 4th August—the Minister gave a little list of those items which he had in mind to prescribe as part of this direction. These are to be the designated items and it is those from which the water authorities, I understand, can select when they apply for an order in their favour.
For the general public, this is the guts of the Bill. The public want to know what can be prohibited and what can be prescribed in this list. I am not happy about the fact that paragraph (b), in describing this list, says that it shall consist of the items which are
for the time being prescribed".
I presume from this that it may be what the Secretary of State thinks up in his 5 in. of water in the bath in the morning and that it may be altered from time to time. This is not very satisfactory.
First, may I deal with the procedural point? It is a very unusual procedure. It provides that when it is eventually made the order must make a selection from the list. That order will have, I presume, to recite the direction in order to show that it is valid, because the order will beultra vires if it goes outside that list. I think I am interpreting the paragraph clearly.
In another capacity I have the honour of being the Chairman of the Statutory Instruments Committee, and I can imagine one of these orders coming before it. The question we should have to ask would be


whether it is in accordance with paragraph (b), and in order to find whether it is we should require to see the direction and require to see that the order is selecting an item out of that direction. It is a very difficult procedure to follow and will give rise to problems on the question of thevires of the order.
When I first read this I objected to these words on the ground that they seemed to give much too extensive powers to the Secretary of State. But, having heard the explanation and the reasons for it in the right hon. Gentleman's speech on Second Reading, I have come to the conclusion that the real objection is not necessarily that it is giving too wide powers to the Secretary of State. The real objection is, first, that the subsection in question does not say what the Minister means, and in that sense it is bad and misleading; secondly, it is too restrictive in advance of the functions of the water authorities.
Only those items which appear in the list can be asked for in the application by a water authority for an order. May I take a humorous and extreme example. Let us suppose the list says—as we are told it will—that racecourses must not be watered with hosepipes and various other things, as described, and that a sprinkler must not be used, and it is then found that all the stable lads come out every half hour with buckets of water. I imagine that on receiving an application from Newmarket, or somewhere else, we should need to look at the direction. We should then find that we could not make an order about buckets of water but could make an order only about hosepipes and sprinklers not being used.
The list as given by the right hon. Gentleman—and this is a serious matter—does not include anything about industrial concerns, or even commercial concerns. There might be a factory producing Coca-Cola, and it might be considered unnecessary that it should wash all its bottles every day. I understand that an excessive amount of water is used in bottle-washing, whether they are Coca-Cola or beer bottles. There is nothing in the right hon. Gentleman's list which could cover this sort of thing or, indeed, commercial matters. If the many thousands of young ladies employed by Littlewood's Pools were using a great deal of water as a result of washing their hands four or five times a

day, and one wished to restrict that, nothing in the right hon. Gentleman's list would enable that to be done.
I suggest that there will be problems arising from the words in paragraph (b), and that it would probably be better to give the list in a circular, rather than in the Bill. Then it could be altered from time to time without creating any difficulties with orders following from it. In the orders given to the water authorities specific mention should be made of those items that can be prohibited and then those orders should, as we shall come to on a later amendment, be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
Amendments Nos. 26 and 31 follow from the amendment to which I have been addressing my remarks so far, because they seek to leave out some subsections that are necessary only because of this paragraph (b) in subsection (3). When one looks at subsection (6), which is one of those to be left out by Amendment No. 26, one sees the difficulties that arise from this rather extraordinary procedure that is to be adopted by reason of subsection (3)(b).
It means that if the list is changed in these directions, the Secretary of State will be obliged to revise the orders that he has made. On many occasions I have argued that the word in a clause should be "may" and not "shall", or that it should be "shall" and not "may". But it is significant that in this subsection the Secretary of State "shall" vary an existing order so that it "shall" comply with a change in the list of items in the direction. The Secretary of State can apparently vary that order without any request from the water authority, without going back to the water authority at all, and surely that is a difficult position that arises merely from the inclusion of this system of giving directions and giving them some sort of blessing in the Bill.
Amendment No. 31 relates to the same sort of problem. The wording implies that an order that has already been made will be invalidated if the directions change and if the prohibition on which the order has been made is removed from the list of directions.
The Minister has got himself into a real tangle over this and I ask him to drop the idea of designated prescribed


directions—shades of the designated relevant development of the Community Land Act! He should do it by publishing the list in a circular and he should state specifically in the orders given to the water authorities the items that they may prohibit, and allow us to have scrutiny of the orders through this House.

The Minister of State for Sport and Recreation (Mr. Denis Howell): I am sure that the House wants to make rapid progress. I shall try to deal with the points made by the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) as rapidly as I can, because there are many other amendments to be debated and everyone wants to get the measure on to the statute book at the earliest moment.
I do not think that the right hon. Member for Crosby quite understands the way in which we intend to proceed. Some of his illusions were extremely far fetched. The idea of stable boys rushing on to the course at Newton Abbot with buckets of water so that I can visit the course next week when I am on holiday is fascinating. Stable lads look after horses, not the racecourse, but it is a relevant point and I shall return to it later, because one has to discriminate in what one does about racecourses.

9.15 p.m.

The explanation is that during the water emergency the Secretary of State will make a designation order and tell the 10 regional water authorities that if if they run into trouble they can go to him under Clause 2 for an order to take certain action in respect of the items designated by him under Clause 1. My right hon. Friend gave the House a list of the type of things that would be designated immediately the Bill is on the statute book. Sports grounds, car washes and fountains were three of the items listed.

I take the example of sports grounds. The Welsh Water Authority might wish to make a designation order in South Wales but not in North Wales, where there is plenty of water. It may make such order within that category. In London the water authority might want to make an order in respect of sports grounds, but under Clause 2 the Thames Water Authority could say that it did

not want to stop all the watering of sports grounds. It might say that it would be happy to continue to water the wicket at the Oval, but that it did not wish to water the outfield. It would need to apply for a limited order. The Northumberland Water Authority, because it has no shortage, might not want to make an order at all.

We are saying that the Secretary of State will make designation orders and invite regional water authorities to apply for their own special orders in that category. But they could not go outside that. If industry is not designated, the authorities will not be able to make orders affecting industry.

We do not want to put restrictions on industry and agriculture unless that is essential, but if the crisis worsens, my right hon. Friend might want to make further designation orders which include industry. In that eventuality, regional water authorities could come back and apply under Clause 2 for an order.

The amendment deals with Clause 1 and has nothing to do with orders under Clause 2, but we must understand the Clause 2 procedures which relate to Clause 1. If we removed the words suggested by the right hon. Member for Crosby, considerable uncertainty would be created. The right hon. Gentleman was right on the ball when he said that he first thought that our wording was too wide and that now he thinks that it is probably too restrictive. That suggests that we have got it about right, which is what we aimed to do. We wish to cause as little uncertainty as possible so that the regional water authorities know the areas at which they should look in the emergency for follow-up orders. I hope that that explanation will be satisfactory to the right hon. Gentleman and that he will withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Graham Page: The Minister said on several occasions that the Secretary of State would make a designation order. That is the matter which I wanted to clear up. There will not be an order as paragraph (b) stands. The directions will have no strength except that they will have to be examined when an order is made to see that they areultra vires. That is why I say that the words should be left out. The list should be published but once it is put into the Bill


there will be the gravest difficulty in making an order which is within the power of the Minister. The direction will be recited at the beginning of the order. I do not see how, otherwise, one can say that the order is valid.
If these words were left out the Minister would have the same power without there being any of the confusion which will arise from these words.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 2, line 7, at end insert:
'but no such direction shall prejudice the statutory functions and duties of navigation of harbour authorities'.
The use of water has always involved a clash of interests and the art of political co-ordination. In this amendment I seek to protect the use of water in respect of inland navigation and marginally where harbour authorities have that function. This subject is referred to partly in Clause 3(2). There it refers to taking
water from a source from which water
is available to inland navigation and to statutory discharges from inland navigation for other uses. I am particularly concerned with the scope of the directions which have already been referred to and which were set out in general terms by the Minister of State yesterday as reported at column 1747.
From the indication given by the Minister it appears that it is not in his mind to make any directions which shall direct the use of water from inland navigations in such a way that the statutory duties of inland navigation authorities are upset. I do not refer only to the British Waterways Board because, although it is the biggest operator of the system, there are a good many independent canals and navigations such as the Upper Avon, Navigation Trust and Wey Navigation. I suspect that the Minister has no intention of making any directions that would interfere with their obligations. That is not, however, made explicit in the Bill. It would be useful if it were made explicit, if possible.
This year there has been considerable disruption of navigation on canals. That has been one of the subjects made newsworthy by the drought. The Minister

will agree that canal users, the British Waterways Board in particular, have done their best to use water responsibly. They have their own sources of supply—not always adequate. I am sure that at a time of national emergency there would be full co-operation from these navigational authorities with the appropriate regional water authority over the use of these sources. I do not think that this has been necessary so far and I hope that it will not be.
I would like an assurance that the Minister does not intend to make any directions in this area and that if in extreme circumstances sonic use were to be made of the sources available to inland navigation, before the order was made there would be full consultation with the navigational authorities concerned. I hope that this amendment can be added to the Bill to make matters explicit. If it is not, I trust that the Minister will give me the assurance for which I ask.

Mr. Graham Page: The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) is always extremely observant of the wording of a clause and its effect. He has confirmed what I was trying to say during the course of the debate on the last amendment and which was not accepted by the Minister, namely, that nothing can be done by direction. The amendment says that
no such direction shall prejudice the statutory functions".
A direction cannot do anything at all. It cannot prejudice a statutory function. It cannot alter a function.
The fact that the hon. Member for Newham, South can so misinterpret this clause confirms our belief that these words will cause confusion to all who read this Bill in the future. Had he chosen the words "the order should not prejudice these statutory obligations" that would have been right. He misread the clause because it is bad and misleading, and we are told that it does not mean what it logically says.

Mr. Denis Howell: May I just clear up this point? I never said anything of the sort. I agree with the right hon. Member that nothing could be done by direction itself. The direction indicates the areas in which the regional water authorities can come forward to apply for


an order. I agree with him in his interpretation and I think that there has been a slight misunderstanding between us on this matter.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) moved this amendmnt in the form of a probing amendment. The direction cannot prejudice the functions of the statutory duties. The order may do so subsequently, but the direction itself cannot do so. I am told by my legal advisers that the wording he has suggested is, technically, defective. If it means anything at all, it means that the direction of the Secretary of State would be renderd invalid or unworkable, and I am sure he would not want that situation to occur. The direction will comprise a list of non-essential uses, and it cannot possibly prejudice the carrying out of any functions and duties.
I can assure my hon. Friend that as far as the British Waterways Board is concerned, Ministers will have a proper regard for its obligations. They will not seek to do anything by way of direction or subsequent orders which will impinge unreasonably on the board's obligations. Naturally, officials of my Department are in touch with officials of the board and the fears my hon. Friend has are not justified.
Frankly I do not understand his inclusion of harbour and navigation authorities in the wording of the amendment but in so far as there is any doubt about this matter I can give a similar assurance to that which I gave in respect of the British Waterways Board. Having given that undertaking, I hope that my hon. Friend will be satisfied that his point has been met.

Mr. Spearing: I am grateful for that assurance. I apologise for any misunderstanding I may have had, but, as I said yesterday, this is a technically complicated Bill.
The purpose of including navigational and harbour authorities is that in some circumstances harbour authorities are responsible for navigation in impounded waters upstream.
In view of what my hon. Friend has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Jones: I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 2, line 28, after 'authority', insert:
'subject to any conditions specified in the order'.

The Deputy Chairman: With this we are to take Government Amendment No. 4.

Mr. Jones: The amendment refers to subsection (3)(f) dealing with the protection of water supply consequent upon the discharge of sewage or trade effluent, mainly into water courses from which supplies may eventually be drawn or the protection of the standard of those water courses. The regional water authorities are responsible for taking the necessary steps to these ends. They are responsible for the standard of sewage effluents and the acceptance into water courses of trade effluents and for setting standards. To some extent they have a joint responsibility—the acceptance of these effluents and the maintenance of the standards of water courses.
If the subsection is left as it stands, the authorities are acting as judge and jury in their own case. The Bill requires the Secretary of State to be responsible for giving the necessary authority for the discharge, and his approval is required in terms of the order which needs to be laid. The amendment seeks to require that any conditions laid down by the Secretary of State shall be specified in the order. At present this is omitted from the Bill but there is adequate justification for including wording to this effect.
I welcome the fact that the Minister has added his name to Amendment No. 4, which has the same effect as Amendment No. 3, and we welcome his recognition of the need for some specification in the order.

Mr. Denis Howell: The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Jones) has made a convincing case and we entirely agree with him. However, we prefer the words to which my right hon. Friend has added his name. This point his been represented to us by the CBI amongst other organisations, and we accept it.
We do not think that it is necessary to write into the Bill a provision enabling the Minister to attach conditions to orders because we think that it is already there.


In subsection (3) provision is made to include supplementary provisions in orders. Schedule 1(3)(4) deals with the same point. Therefore the conditions are there. But orders which are made for variation or suspension of consents to discharge sewage or trade effluents should specify the consent or consents to which they refer. Amendment No. 4 probably does that rather better than Amendment No. 3, and therefore I hope that the Committee will agree not to proceed with Amendment No. 3 but to accept Amendment No. 4.

Mr. Graham Page: Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 deal with entirely different matters. Amendment No. 3 seeks to put in an order any conditions which the Secretary of State wishes to impose on a suspension or variation of consent. Amendment No. 4 deals with the specifying of the consent itself, and we accept that this should go into the order.
The Minister said that Amendment No. 3 was not necessary because of provisions already in the Bill. Clause 1(3)(c) provides that the Minister may lay down conditions if a water authority suspends or modifies any restriction or obligation. The fact that this provision is omitted from Clause 1(3)(f) would, in my opinion, lead the courts to interpret the intention as being that the water authorities should be entitled to attach conditions without restriction from the Minister.
The Secretary of State may wish to say that a consent should not be granted unless the authority or person concerned is prepared to provide an alternative method of disposal. It would not do any harm if the words in Amendment No. 3 were included so that the same provision applied to paragraph (f) as applied to paragraph (e).

Mr. Denis Howell: In reply to that typical point from the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), I can say that Amendment No. 3 is unnecessary because Amendment No. 4 substantially meets the basic point. I agree that the amendments are different but their objective is the same—that an order seeking to effect consents for such discharges has to specify the individual consents. There will be no blanket power. I think that that is the assurance wanted by the House.
I also drew attention earlier to the detailed conditions provision for which is already contained in two places in the clause. We have met the basic point being put by the right hon. Member for Crosby. I hope that he will be content with Amendment No. 4.

Mr. Arthur Jones: I was interested to hear the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) about what he sees as the conflicting objectives of Amendments Nos. 3 and 4. The words at the end of Clause 1(3) are general and apply to all the lettered subsections.
My interpretation was that the purpose which we were seeking was met by Amendment No. 4, which is our words to which the Minister has put his name. It would be discourteous of us not to recognise the joint objectives of the Government and the Opposition on this new requirement which is placed upon the Secretary of State. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: No. 4, in page 2, line 29, after 'consent', insert 'specified in the order'.—[Mr. John Silkin.]

Mr. Arthur Jones: I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 2, leave out lines 40 to 42.
This amendment relates to subsection (4) which refers to the classification of the consumer.
The subsection provides:
where the order specifies a class of consumer it may authorise the authority to apply the prohibition or limitation to any particular consumer within that class.
I do not think that we have discussed the classification of consumers. I think of it in terms of perhaps agriculture as a whole or one particular section of an industry. These words give authority for the prohibition or limitation
to any particular consumer within that class.
Taking the analogy of agriculture, am I right in thinking that if, regrettably, only limited water supplies are available to agriculture, it will be possible to allow irrigation for specified crops or for certain agricultural facilities? This raises a significant issue. It has given particular and positive control to the regional water authorities under the authority


granted to them and confirmed by the Secretary of State.
May we have some reasons for the necessity for a very narrow control of water supplies for particular uses? How can we be sure that people will not be singled out unfairly or discriminatorily? Wide responsibilities will rest on the Secretary of State, who will be concerned with scrupulously interpreting his powers fairly. Will there be any means by which a consumer may appeal against the Secretary of State's decision?
We are using this amendment to probe these questions. I have no doubt that there is wide recognition of their importance and a need for the Draconian measures of the Bill. I hope that we shall be given a further and better explanation of the importance of these three lines.

9.45 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Jones). Subsection (4) empowers a water authority to pick out one consumer if the order is a class order. If the Secretary of State made an order stating that a water authority may apply prohibition to a class, as I read subsection (4) the water authority would be entitled to pick out a particular consumer. That is a nice phrase. It sounds like a dainty eater.
If there were a prohibition on the use of baths in dwelling-houses, the water authority could pick out Mr. Bloggins down the road because he had so many baths. If there were a prohibition on restaurants, the authority could pick out Joe's transport café down the road. I am taking extreme examples, but that is the only way in which we can try to interpret how these measures will work.
It is not clear whether in the order the Secretary of State must specify the consumer or whether the water authority is given power to select individual consumers and to put a prohibition on only one.
If someone is to be picked out as a person on whom prohibition should be imposed to the exclusion of all others, that should be mentioned specifically so that we know what is happening. At

the moment, a water authority has power to make its own selection.

Mr. Denis Howell: The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Jones) and the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) are right. This is what I call the discrimination clause. It gives regional water authorities and my right hon. Friend power to discriminate not against but in favour of people.
I do not think that the far-fetched allusion suggested by the right hon. Member for Crosby of picking out Mr. Bloggins is likely to be carried out by regional water authorities, even though the right hon. Gentleman set them all up. I have criticised them from time to time, but I do not think that they would behave in such an unreasonable manner.
I think that the hon. Member for Daventry was much nearer to the point when he took his agricultural illustration. This meets a point which the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed) has rightly put to us on two or three occasions.
I should like to go back to my cricketing allusion to explain this matter. If my right hon. Friend were to issue a direction covering all sports grounds—I will deal with the position in London —unless there were power to discriminate within that class, he would not discriminate in favour of Lords and the Oval or any other ground in respect of repairing the wicket so that people could play on it next year. Therefore, we must have positive power to discriminate.
Putting it another way, if an order were made covering all parks in London, unless we could discriminate to exempt the Oval and Lords from that general order, it would apply to all public parks, including these highly specialised sports grounds. In short, there is a need for flexibility.
I do not think that water authorities will behave irrationally or unreasonably. We wish to retain this wording in the Bill for the reasons that I have given. We need to be able to discriminate positively for sensible reasons. Therefore, we need the greatest degree of flexibility.

Mr. Arthur Jones: Could the right hon. Gentleman give an example applying to agriculture or to industry? That is where the greatest interest will lie.

Mr.Howell: I am not as well versed in agriculture and industry as I am in sport, which is why I prefer to rely on my sporting knowledge. No doubt the hon. Gentleman can find many examples within industry. To take a bottle-wasting example, in an acute emergency it may become necessary to make a direction regarding the cleansing of vessels, and so on. I do not think that I could agree that Coca Cola should be stopped from washing its bottles, as my family drink gallons of the stuff. Obviously, it might be necessary to exempt Coca Cola from a general direction. On the other hand, people might think that it was better that Courage should be exempt, or something of that sort. It is flexibility of that sort, within an industry, which would follow. However, I assure the House that people would act reasonably responsibly.
The Bill will come into operation when the House is in recess. If there are difficulties in the early days, it is likely to be when the House is in recess. Therefore, hon. Members will not have the opportunity to raise matters challenge Ministers about what they are doing when the House it sitting. To meet that point, my right hon. Friend and I give an unqualified undertaking that we will at any time meet Members who wish to take up with us, in this emergency situation, any matters which need attention and which they cannot raise in this Chamber. I am sure that that undertaking will be accepted and regarded as reasonable in the circumstances.

Mr. Graham Page: I thank the right hon. Gentleman very much for that undertaking. However, he is, in a very practical way, reading into the Bill something that is not there at all. He said that what the subsection means is that the water authorities will have power to exempt certain people when they have a class order. It does not say that in the subsection at all. It says
authorise the authority to apply the prohibition or limitation to any particular consumer.
It is "to apply the prohibition", and not to relieve anyone.
If that is what it was intended to do, I wish that it had been written into the

subsection. It is most misleading to anyone who tries to interpret it, if we have to rely upon the right hon. Gentleman's interpretation. Reasonable and very practical as that may be, it is not in the Bill.

Mr. Arthur Jones: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the assurance he has given. However, I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) in what he has said. The analogy that the right hon. Gentleman gave about the cricket square at Lords is not a reflection of the wording in the Bill. What the subsection says is
apply the prohibition or limitation to any particular consumer 
I do not know who owns Lords, or one of the other cricket pitches, but it will not be possible, in these terms, to say "You may water the cricket square but not the outfield." I do not think that the powers extend that far. If one allows Lords to water, I should think that it would be entitled to water the square and the outfield as well. I realise the difficulties of interpretation. The Minister for Planning and Local Government may say that it is quite easy, but I do not think that his right hon. Friend is finding it terribly easy, although perhaps he is doing very well but could do better.
I should like to suggest a way in which the Minister may consider doing better. Perhaps we could have some examples to help industry and agriculture, by way of a Press release, for instance, or something of that sort. That would be most helpful not only for regional water authorities but for those who will be at the receiving end, or otherwise, of this legislation. The facts will be important to them. It would be helpful if the Government could make further and better particulars available.

Mr. Denis Howell: On behalf of my right hon. Friend I am quite happy to say that as an order is made we shall undertake to do what we have just been asked to do and to make available as much information as possible about examples.
I intend to do better, because it occurred to me half way through the hon. Gentleman's speech, when he asked


who owned Lords, that Lords is owned by the members of the Marylebone Cricket Club, and as I happen to be one of them I ought to declare an interest in the matter. Perhaps I can do that retrospectively.

Mr. Arthur Jones: I am grateful to both right hon. Gentlemen for their assurances, in the light of which I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Denis Howell: I beg to move Amendment No. 6, in page 2, line 43, leave out from 'section' to 'shall ' in line 46.
This is a technical amendment which we have included upon advice to clear up Clause 1(3)(b). The amendment clarifies

the intention to confirm the right of water authorities to levy any water rate or minimum charge not only where they are relieved of an obligation in relation to the supply of water by them but also where they are authorised to prohibit or limit the use of such water. It has always been the declared intention of Ministers that in neither case should there be an abatement of charges, but there was some doubt whether the clause as drafted achieved the desired effect. The amendment does so.
We covered this ground yesterday in the Second Reading debate when the principle of the amendment was discussed. I hope that it will be acceptable.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 1, as amended, ordered to stand part or the Bill.

Clause 2

PROVISION FOR MEETING WATER SHORTAGES IN AN EMERGENCY

Mr. Graham Page: I beg to move Amendment No. 32, in page 4, line 12, after 'purposes', insert
'as are specified in the Order and'.

The Deputy Chairman: With this we may take the following amendments:

No. 33, in page 4, line 22, leave out subsection (4).

No. 34, in page 4, line 26, at end insert—
'(5) An order under this section may empower the authority to prohibit or limit the use of water by consumers generally, by a specified class of consumer or by a particular specified consumer'.

No. 35, in page 4, leave out lines 30 and 31.

No. 36, in page 4, line 42, leave out subsection (6).

No. 37, in page 4, line 45, leave out subsection (7).

Mr. Page: Under Clause 1 an order may be made in respect of an item selected from the list. Under Clause 2 anything goes. The wording in Clause 2(1) is as follows:
and is further satisfied that the deficiency is such as to be likely to impair the economic or social well-being of persons in the area".
Those are the words which distinguish the two clauses. There is a difference between the provisions of Clause 1(3)(b) and Clause 2(3)(b).
In an order under Clause 2, a water authority can select a purpose not included in the list. It may take the list as a precedent but is not bound to select an item from it when applying to the Secretary of State for an order. Nor is the Secretary of State bound to make an order based on the designated list.
Amendment No. 32 provides that the local authority which is authorised to carry out this prohibitive order shall specify the purpose in the order, so that the public will know the purpose for which the water authority applied to the Secretary of State and in respect of which he has given power to prohibit.
Amendment No. 33 deals with subsection (4) which gives the Secretary of State to give directions to the water authority—

It being Ten o'clock, The CHAIRMANleft the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

Committee report Progress.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the Drought Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Tinn.]

DROUGHT BILL [Lords]

Again considered in Committee.

Mr. Page: I was dealing with Amendment No. 33, which seeks to remove subsection (4) from the Bill.
Under that subsection the Secretary of State may give directions to the water authority when carrying out powers which he may already have given it. Then having given it authority under subsection (4), he may direct the authority as to the manner in which it shall carry out that authority and the circumstances of so doing. That process could wholly nullify any order and put the Secretary of State in place of the water authority in deciding to carry out the prohibition or limit the use of water. I think that was the intention of the Minister as he expressed himself on Second Reading.
I appreciate the righ hon. Gentleman's reasons, but the action of the Secretary of State cannot be challenged in any court or indeed under parliamentary procedures. These are Draconian powers, and I question the necessity of these provisions having to be set out in this form, with no possibility of scrutiny of the order given by the Secretary of State to the water authority. If subsection (4) were omitted, Amendments Nos. 36 and 37 would follow. I need not deal with them specifically.
I turn to Amendments Nos. 34 and 35. As subsection (5) stands, the order given by the Secretary of State to water authorities will say, in effect "You, the water authority, may prohibit or limit the use of water in any way you wish.".


Amendment No. 34 provides that the order must be specific in the powers which it grants. As the matter stands, the Secretary of State can give a completely blank cheque to the water authority to prohibit or limit the use of water in any way he chooses, and should specify in the order the ways in which he is authorised to exercise those powers.

The Minister for Planning and Local Government (Mr. John Silkin): The right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) is, as we know—and we are grateful for it—the watchdog of the House of Commons, but occasionally there are times when he does not want to bark when there is a crisis. The difference between Clause 1 and Clause 2 is that in Clause 2 we have reached a crisis whereas in Clause 1 we are in what may be termed the run-up to a crisis, although we hope that there will not be one. Clause 1 deals with a situation in which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, there are a number of nonessential uses which the regional authority may deal with as it wishes. Clause 2 deals with blanket rationing powers, subject to ministerial direction.
If the right hon. Gentleman's amendments were accepted, an order made under the Bill would have to set out all the uses of water which the authority might want to control in an emergency. If any of them were left out, they would be exempt. The right hon. Gentleman, like myself, is a practitioner and he knows what would happen: every water authority would put in every conceivable possible use. There would as a result be a volume of paper, which I dislike as much as the right hon. Gentleman, and the public would not understand what it was about. It is therefore better to avoid this situation and to provide for an order which deals with the nature of the emergency. In other words, the water authority must be free to exercise its control flexibility. That applies equally to the ministerial power of direction.
The right hon. Members for Crosby and Ashford (Mr. Speed) and my hon. Friends know perfectly well how to deal with arrogant Ministers who exceed their powers. Although it would not do them much good to propose a reduction in my salary as I do not receive one, there are

other means by which they could bring me or any other arrogant Minister to task. The point is that we are dealing with a crisis. We must therefore take crisis action. In the light of that, I hope that the right hon. Member for Crosby will ask for leave to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Graham Page: To a great extent, I agree with what the Minister has said and I am grateful to him for putting it on the record. To that extent, the amendments were probing amendments. I should, however, like to press the right hon. Gentleman in respect of subsection (4) under which the directions can be given without any formality. They are not to be made by order. I presume that they could be made simply by letter or even by means of a telephone call to the water authority. The matter should be dealt with more formally and there should be some provision in the Bill setting out how the directions would be given.
If the Minister will give an undertaking that when he gives a direction to a water authority the public will know about it, I shall be happy.

Mr. John Silkin: I shall do what I can to meet the point made by the right hon. Gentleman. A crisis might arise when it was necessary to do something very quickly. The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that a Minister might have to act with great speed and urgency and it might not be possible to do everything that one would wish to do. However, such assurance as I can give the right hon. Gentleman I heartily give him.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Keith Speed: I beg to move Amendment No. 7, in page 4, line 29, after 'water', 'insert' supplied by that authority'.
This is a probing amendment, and it deals with quite a simple point. There could be a situation in which a consumer—I suppose,in extremis—might even have water imported. Someone on the North-East Coast, for example, might have a tanker of water imported from Norway, where I understand there is plenty of water, or consumers just across the border from Scotland, which also has plenty of water and which is not covered by the Bill, might be able to bring water from Scotland.
In such a situation, I am not clear whether consumers would be allowed to do that. We propose the insertion of these words to make it clear that drastic prohibitions in this way would apply to water supplied by an authority in an area to a consumer in that area.
This is not a dramatic point, but it is one which needs clarification, because I can see the nonsenses which would arise if there were impositions about this. I should be grateful for some assurance from the right hon. Gentleman about it.

Mr. John Silkin: I have a great deal of sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman has said, and I am with him in his intention. However, we find the drafting a little difficult. Since he was good enough to say that he would welcome an assurance from me, perhaps I might give him the assurance that in administrative terms the matter will be dealt with by including in the orders made under Clause 2 a provision specifically excluding water imported in the sense that his amendment suggests. If he is happy with that, I gladly give him that assurance.

Mr. Speed: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that assurance. In view of it, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. John Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 8, in page 4, line 32, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
'(b) the authority shall take such steps as they think appropriate for bringing the prohibition or limitation to the attention of the persons to whom the prohibition or limitation will apply, and, in particular, shall—

(i) cause notice of the prohibition or limitation to be published in one or more local newspapers circulating within that part of the authority's area which would be affected by the provision of the order, or—
(ii) send notice of the prohibition or limitation to the persons to whom the prohibition or limitation will apply,
as the authority think appropriate;'.

The Deputy Chairman: With this we may consider Amendment No. 9, in page 4, line 32, leave out from 'shall' to 'give' in line 35.

Mr. Silkin: The intention of the amendment is to strengthen the duty of the water authority by placing a general

obligation upon it to bring to the attention of everyone likely to be affected any prohibition or limitation on water use, with the particular obligation either to publish notices in local papers or to send an individual notice to each of the persons affected.
We intend that this additional publicity requirement shall include radio and television broadcasts where appropriate, the basis being that everyone concerned will be fully aware of the proposed action of the water authority.

Mr. Speed: I am grateful to the Minister for this amendment. It meets a point that we had put to him. It does not go quite as far as our own amendment, but probably it goes as far as practicable.
I endorse what the hon. Gentleman said about the media. We in this House have been mesmerised by the local paper circulating and have not taken sufficient cognisance of the existence of local radio and television stations. If we wish to get across a message quickly, it might not be possible to do so with a local paper.
The words:
as the authority think appropriate
and "the authority shall" are stronger than the original provisions in the Bill in terms of giving notice of a prohibition or limitation to those to whom it will apply. Again, there are modern methods of transmitting notices which, for example, the energy industries have had to use from time to time. This is a welcome improvement.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: I want to raise one point. When the Secretary of State makes the order—in fact, before he makes the order—there will be all the procedure set out in the Schedule in respect of the notices of the application, and so on, of the water authority. At that stage it will be a general sort of order. No doubt, a general prohibition is being asked for or a general order of some sort. When the water authority operates Clause 2(5) it may specify a particular consumer. That is the point at which the crunch will come. The authority may perhaps use the first of the alternatives and merely put a notice in the newspaper without giving specific notice to the particular consumer who will be the


victim, as it were, of the prohibition. It is that little word "or" between the sub-paragraphs of the Secretary of State's amendment to which I am drawing attention.
I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to call to the attention of the authorities, where they are making an order against a particular consumer, that they should make every endeavour to let that particular consumer know by direct notice.

Mr. John Silkin: That was what was intended but the right hon. Gentleman understands that one cannot make it conjunctive by this. I take his point and I shall do everything that I can to meet it.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. John Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 10, in page 4, line 39, leave out '48' and insert '72'.

The Deputy Chairman: With this we may take Government Amendment No. 11.

Mr. Silkin: Amendment No. 11 is consequential on Amendment No. 10. Amendment No. 10 meets the point fairly made by hon. Gentlemen opposite who thought that 48 hours was too short a period to elapse between the publication by the water authority of a notice about prohibitions or limitations on water use and the time at which the prohibitions or limitations can take effect. I fully agree with them and I hope this additional safeguard will be considered appropriate in view of the possibly rather stringent restrictions which water authorities might have to impose.

Mr. Speed: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. The amendment meets the point that we made to him and I am sure that it will improve the situation.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 11, in page 4, line 41, leave out 'given' and insert
'sent to the person in question'.—[Mr. John Silkin.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3

SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS AS TO THE POWERS CONFERRED UNDER SECTION 1 OR 2

Mr. Graham Page: I beg to move Amendment No. 40, in page 6, line 25, at end insert
'and shall include provisions that no entry shall be made except as authorised by a magistrates' warrant'.
In Clause 3(4)(a), an order may authorise the authority
to enter upon any land specified in the order and to occupy and use the land to such extent and in such manner as may be requisite for the execution and maintenance of the works".
I think that the public are always very concerned when a public authority is given the power to enter land and, particularly in this case, to occupy and use the land, but not merely to enter upon it in order to obtain information or something of that sort. In fact, as the clause stands, the order could authorise a break-in to an inhabited dwelling-house without notice, although subsection (5) also states that the order may specify that not less than seven days' notice shall be given. The power given, for instance, in the Water Act 1945 is a power to enter if entry has been refused only on a magistrate's warrant. That is to say, if entry is allowed—if the occupant does not object when the officer calls to enter—that is all right, but if entry is refused the previous legislation has rightly said that one should go to the magistrate and on oath obtain a warrant for entry.
That could apply in this case because of the mention in subsection (5) of the giving of seven days' notice. Obviously one is not contemplating an emergency, a breaking-in to overcome some emergency conditions. In these circumstances, I should have thought that the right thing to do was to provide that if entry was refused it should be done only on a warrant and that there should not be any authorisation of a break-in to premises for this purpose.

Mr. John Silkin: In normal circumstances I should have some sympathy, though not all the way, with the right hon. Gentleman, because, like one of my right hon. Friends on a previous occasion, he could do better. In any event, the magistrate's warrant is not technically the


right thing, because it should be the warrant of a justice of the peace. Justices of the peace are competent to do this and not all of them are magistrates, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows but needs to be reminded.
I agree that this power differs from the 1945 Act. We took it from the 1958 Act and I think that we were right to do so. We want to deal with something which is really a matter of urgency. I know that seven days does not seem to be a matter of urgency. We are dealing with matters like the laying of temporary mains which should be dealt with as soon as possible. We thought that seven days' notice was a perfectly adequate safeguard and that in following the 1958 Act we could not go far wrong.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not make too much of this. After showing his erudition on the 1945 Act, he nodded just that once on magistrates' warrants.

Mr. Graham Page: After that reprimand, there is nothing I can do but say that I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr Graham Page: At the top of page 6, subsection (3) says:
A prohibition or limitation on the taking of water from any source may be imposed so as to have effect in relation to a source
and so on. I am in doubt about what is meant there by the word "impose".
Throughout our debates on the Bill there have been references to directions and Orders. I am not certain whether this imposition can be done by an informal direction or whether we are talking about imposition by an Order. I should be grateful if the Minister would tell us what is meant by that word.

Mr. John Silkin: If I knew the answer immediately it would be both short and sweet, but it has taken me three minutes to find the place, so I had better start by reading it to myself:
A prohibition or limitation on the taking of water from any source may be imposed so as to have effect in relation to a source from which a person to whom the prohibition or limitation applies".

I am told that the Order will specify the source. I do not know whether this quite meets the right hon. Gentleman's point, but I suppose it does.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

GENERAL

Mr. Speed: I beg to move Amendment No. 12, in page 8, line 15, at end insert
which shall not remain in operation for longer than 28 days, unless it is approved by resolution of both Houses of Parliament".

The Deputy Chairman: With this we may take Amendment No. 41, in page 8, line 16, after "order", insert
(by statutory instrument to be laid before Parliament)".
The Minister has given me notice that he wishes to move the following manuscript amendment, which would also conveniently be included in this debate: in page 8, line 16, after first "order" insert "in a statutory instrument".
I have decided to select the amendment. Copies of it are available, I understand, in the Vote Office and at the Table.

Mr. John Silkin: The manuscript amendment goes with Amendment No. 12, which the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed) has just moved formally, and with Amendment No. 41, in the name of the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page).
The right hon. Gentleman's amendment provides that an Order revoking a previous Order should be by Statutory Instrument and should be laid before Parliament. One always gives due consideration to any point that the right hon. Gentleman makes. After giving due consideration to this one, I think he has a point.
Any general Orders under the Bill are by Statutory Instrument, and it seemed to us that a ratification Order should be in the same form. The Bill does not at the moment provide this. Therefore, we have tabled a last-minute manuscript amendment to put this right.
As I am on my feet, I should say that we do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's point about laying the Order before the House. In the first place, to be quite frank, it does not achieve any further parliamentary control, which we assume is what he has in mind. Secondly, it would be quite anomalous in relation to other water Orders which are not laid. Finally, the effect of the provision would be that these revocation Orders would be laid while other Orders under the Bill would not.

Mr. Graham Page: I shall address my remarks first to Amendment No. 41 and to the Minister's manuscript amendment, because the two go together. I see no reason why an Order of this sort should not be laid before the House. I have never seen any good reason for making Statutory Instruments and not laying them before the House.
It is true, as the Minister says, that it gives no further parliamentary procedure but at least it informs the House, and the House should be informed of Orders of this sort. If they are not laid, the only way they come before the House is by coming before the Statutory Instruments Committee, whether they are laid or not laid; therefore, at least a Committee of the House sees them. If they are out of order, they will be duly reported to the House.
I could never see why one should adopt the practice of not laying Orders when they are made. However, I am grateful for small mercies. If they are not laid, they will come before the Committee of which I have the honour to be Chairman. Therefore, I suppose that I shall see them, although I do not see why I should be selected as a Member of the House to see these Orders when my colleagues do not see them.

10.30 p.m.

As regards Amendment No. 12, the Minister will not be surprised to hear that I think this is the most important amendment in the whole Bill. The Bill is one which I know is precedented by the 1958 Act. There was no provision in that Act for parliamentary procedure on the Orders made under it, but we are now in different circumstances from those which obtained in 1958. In 1958 the Secretary of State was to a great extent

the dictator, the overlord, the manager of the water supply, because there were so many small undertakings providing water for the country. Now we have the large water authorities with all their resources, with all the large geographical area over which they are in control, and when the Secretary of State makes an Order either giving them further powers or taking away some of their powers the Order should receive scrutiny by the House.

The method that my hon. Friends and I have suggested in the amendment would not delay the operation of an Order. The Order under the Bill is to be made by Statutory Instrument, so that the Statutory Instrument will be drafted and could come into effect at once. All that we are asking in the amendment is that both Houses shall have the opportunity to debate these Orders. If the House does not wish to debate them they can go through, as it were, "on the nod", but this formula whereby an Order shall not remain in operation for longer than a period of 28 days—a common formula—unless it is approved by resolution of both Houses of Parliament enables the executive to put into operation at once an Order that may be needed in an emergency but it allows Parliament the opportunity of debating by affirmative resolution whether it should remain in force. If it happens to be during the recess that the 28 days occur, the Government can produce another Order at the end of the 28 days.

Mr. Kenneth Lomas: Surely it is possible for the Opposition, if they wish to debate an Order, to do it on a Supply Day and put their problem to the House then. It need not necessarily be done by the Government.

Mr. Page: The hon. Gentleman is very naive. He must know that it is impossible to find time under the negative resolution procedure or to raise any resolution on an Early-Day Motion relating to a Statutory Instrument. Time is never found for it. There is scarcely any Prayer nowadays for which time is found. If it is found, it is found only in Committee upstairs.

Mr. Lomas: The Opposition could find a Supply Day.

Mr. Page: The hon. Gentleman cannot ask the Opposition to provide a Supply Day on a water Order. I think that the House should have the opportunity by affirmative resolution to consider these Orders. It may be that nobody will wish to debate them if they are uncontroversial, but to provide that these important Orders for important bodies—the water authorities—should merely be made by Statutory Instrument and that the House should be so disregarded that the Orders do not even have to be laid before it shows a great defect in the Bill.
I should have hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would be prepared to say that he would bring the Orders before the House. He wants the emergency provision to bring them into operation at once when they are made, but when they are made the House should be allowed to see whether they should remain in operation. I beg the right hon. Gentleman to appreciate that on this occasion all he would be doing by accepting the amendment would be respecting the House. The precedent of the 1958 Act should not apply here because of the different circumstances of those in control of the water supply at the present time.

Mr. Speed: I endorse the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page). I know that there is a difficulty here. This concerns the question of the control of Parliament, particularly in a situation which has arisen many years after the 1958 Act. I hope that the Minister will be able to make a sympathetic response. I am sure he will appreciate that this is an important point, particularly in view of the situation we have got ourselves into with Statutory Instruments. With the greatest respect to the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Lomas), Supply Days are not suitable for dealing with this issue. There could come a time when his party will be the Opposition and he will wish to use Supply Days for all kinds of other purposes.

Mr. Lomas: I do not envisage the day when the Labour Party will be in Opposition, but if we were we would have the right to pray against an Order or to table amendments.

Mr. Speed: My right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby knows more about this than I do. We had an exchange with the Leader of the House during business questions today on this topic. It is difficult to deal satisfactorily with Prayers. I am certain that any Opposition Chief Whip of any Leader of the Opposition would never wish to use a Supply Day for the purpose that the hon. Gentleman suggests.
There is a difficulty here. We are concerned about these Orders, which could have considerable implications. This also affects parliamentary and ministerial control. We have also to face the fact that these Orders would be likely to be laid in the Summer Recess because, by definition, we are dealing with a drought situation, which I do not think is likely to happen in January, February or March. If it did, we would be in trouble. It could well occur, however, at this time of year.

Mr. John Silkin: The hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed) put his finger on the most difficult point about this provision in his last sentence. Unfortunately, the sort of Order we are envisaging is likely, by force of circumstances, to arise when the House is in recess in the middle of the summer.
There is one point I should like to make to the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page). We are dealing with local Orders. They will be important but they will affect a particular region and not the entire country. Such Orders will apply after advertised objections and, apart from cases of extreme urgency, will be subject to inquiry. It is not a case of an Order simply going through. I do not believe that this is an appropriate case for requiring an affirmative resolution of both Houses.
The point about the recess makes matters difficult. If the issue is so important, I honestly cannot imagine any Minister being able to get away simply with renewing an Order after 28 days and continuing to do so after another 28 days and repeating the process three times during the Summer Recess. We would reach the position when there would have to be a recall of Parliament. I do not think that is practical.
There are other ways of meeting what is a formidable objection. The right hon. Gentleman must appreciate that he is asking us to do something that was not embodied in the 1958 Act, when the current emergency was not even contemplated. I repeat a suggestion made by my right hon. Friend earlier in relation to Clause 1, namely, that I or another Minister in the Department will always be available during the recess should any right hon. or hon. Member be worried about the effect of an Order. We would then be in a position to discuss things.
If the amendment were accepted there would inevitably be a conflict between the various provisions in the Bill for the Orders to run for six months in the case of Clause 1(8) or three months under Clause 2(10) and the provision in the amendment keeping Orders in force for only 28 days. How that would be resolved I cannot imagine.

Mr. Graham Page: If an Order is approved by the resolution suggested in Amendment No. 12, it would remain in operation for the length of time stated in the other part of the Bill. There is no difficulty in that at all. The right hon. Gentleman is making a great burden of this. These 28-day Orders are well-known in other spheres. Customs and Excise is one example.

Mr. Silkin: But this is an emergency.

Mr. Page: Yes, in emergency too. Certainly this has happened with Customs and Excise. This procedure is well known to the House, and if the 28 days runs out during the recess it is not unusual for the Ministry to issue a further 28-day Order.
The House should be given an opportunity in Parliament to provide for these Orders. They are to be made by Statutory Instrument, not even acknowledging that the House is entitled to read them. There is not even any procedure for debating the Orders. The Minister is not treating the House in the way he should.

Mr. Silkin: I am treating it in the same was as the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues treated it in 1958 and 18 years thereafter on a question not nearly as important and difficult as the present one. I am following a precedent.

I wish that he would not be so impetuous and impulsive. This youthful impetuosity frightens the life out of us.

Amendment negatived.

Manuscript amendment made, in page 8, line 16, after 'order', insert 'in a statutory instrument.'—[Mr. John Silkin.]

Clause 5, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1

PROCEDURE FOR MAKING ORDERS

Mr. John Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 13 in page 10, line 15, leave out
'the area of the authority'
and insert
'that part of the area of the aauthority which would be affected by the order'.
The intention of the amendment is to ensure that a copy of any major plan relating to an Order is deposited by the water authority in the area affected by the Order and not simply in the authority's area as a whole. In line with the provisions in the schedule, the amendment is necessary because of the considerable extent of some water authority areas, which could result in the plan being deposited some distance from the area to which it related. This proposal should also meet an Opposition point.

Amendment agreed to.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. John Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 17, in page 11, line 4, at end insert—
'A notice sent in a letter in pursuance of paragraph (b), (c) or (d) above shall not be treated as having been properly served unless the sender takes such steps as are for the time being required to secure that the letter is transmitted in priority to letters of other descriptions.'

The Deputy Chairman: With this we may also discuss the following amendments: No. 14, in page 10, line 33, after 'pre-paid', insert '1st Class'.

No. 15, in page 10, line 37, after 'pre-paid', insert '1st Class'.

No. 16, in page 10, line 43, after 'pre-paid', insert '1st Class'.

Mr. Silkin: I hope the Opposition will agree that the wording of our amendment is better than the wording of their amendments which are designed to achieve the same basis. The purpose is to ensure that formal notices issued by the water authority under Schedule 1 are sent by first-class letter post. The wording may strike hon. Members as being somewhat odd, but it is the result of detailed consultation with the Post Office and it reflects the fact that the first-class letter post has no long-term statutory basis.

Mr. Speed: I had a bee in my bonnet about this matter for some time and I am glad that at long last honey has resulted from the bee buzzing around. It meets the point. Second-class mail can take a considerable time. The right hon. Gentleman and his advisers have consulted the Post Office and have constructed the amendment to cover the point. I hope that in future legislation and when the occasion arises in amending existing legislation, where people have to be informed and a time limit is set, this new form of words may become standard practice.
It is important where people are being informed of their rights or the disadvantages they may suffer from authority that they should be informed as soon as possible, and this should be done by first-class and not second-class mail.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. John Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 19, in page 11, line 21, at end insert—
'Provided that nothing in this sub-paragraph shall authorise the Secretary of State to disregard any objection which has been duly made and not withdrawn.'

The Deputy Chairman: With this we may also discuss Amendment No. 18, in page 11, line 17, leave out sub-paragraph (2).

Mr. Silkin: To avoid any doubt whatever, the amendment reaffirms that where the Secretary of State, for reasons of urgency, dispenses with an inquiry into an application for an Order he is not absolved from the duty to consider any valid objections before reaching his decision.

Mr. Speed: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for the amendment. We

tried to secure the same result with our amendment, but the Government amendment is better.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 1,as amended, agreed to.

Schedule 2

COMPENSATION

Mr. John Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 20, in page 12, line 22, leave out from first 'of' to 'otherwise' in line 23 and insert
'water's being discharged or not discharged to any place or its being discharged'.

The Deputy Chairman: With this we are also to discuss Government Amendments Nos. 21, 22 and 23.

Mr. Silkin: This is a very minor amendment. It extends the compensation provisions of the schedule to cover cases where compensation water is not discharged in a case where, but for the Order, discharge would be required.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendments made: No. 21, in page 12, line 27, after second 'discharge' insert 'or lack of discharge'.

No. 22, in page 12, line 28, after first 'discharged', insert 'or not discharged'.

No. 23, in page 12, line 31, after first 'the', insert 'lack of'.—[Mr. John Silkin.]

Mr. John Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 24, in page 13, line 7, leave out "three" and insert "six".

The Deputy Chairman: With this we may discuss Amendment No. 42, in page 13, leave out lines 6 to 17.

Mr. Silkin: The amendment has the effect of extending from three to six months the period for the lodging of claims for compensation. It recognises that in some cases the claimant may not have all the information necessary, to lodge the complaint within three months.
It does not go as far as Amendment No. 42, but it goes a further three months' of the way. I do not think we can remove from the Bill any limitation on the time within which compensation can be claimed. I hope that the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) will feel that


I have gone some way towards meeting his point.

Mr. Graham Page: The Minister has gone some of the way but not as far as I should wish. The sub-paragraph is precedented in the 1958 Act, but I have never seen why claims of this sort should be limited as compared with other civil claims. Why should there be a restriction of three or six months after the end of the period? There may be a number of facts to be collected and perhaps difficult calculations to be made in connection with the damage caused. It could not be all that inconvenient for a water authority to wait the normal period for a claim of this kind.
I do not know what principle the Minister adopted to arrive at six months rather than the original proposal of three months. Why not deal with it in the same way as an ordinary civil claim?

Mr. John Silkin: The principle adopted in making the period six months rather than three months was the splendid principle of, wherever possible, supporting the Page. It has carried me through much of my parliamentary career.
I could say that this provision is precedented, but that would not satisfy the right hon. Gentleman or my conscience. I imagine that the reason why we are limiting the time for claims of this sort is that a series of open-ended contingent liabilities would otherwise have to be accepted by authorities without even knowing when they were due to be submitted. It is important, particularly for a statutory body such as a regional water authority to which his situation might occur quite often, that some time limit should be arranged.
I had to reach a decision, and the right hon. Gentleman is probably more likely to agree with six months than with three months. That is the best way I can do for him.

Mr. Graham Page: The Minister and I are members of the same profession and he knows how easily a period of this sort can run out and how a client can be penalised. If he has the opportunity in another Bill, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look at this matter again to see whether we can get

rid of this unnecessary provision in Bills. There is no principle behind it. I think that it was probably included solely for the convenience of administrators in the water authorities.

Amendment agreed to.

Question proposed, That this schedule, as amended, be the Second Schedule to the Bill.

Mr. Graham Page: My question on this schedule—

Mr. Lomas: Come on!

Mr. Page: I do not know whether you can restrain the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Lomas), Mr. God man Irvine. He is not the least bit in terested in the Bill but keeps intervening from a sedentary position. The Bill is technical and is sometimes rather difficult to follow.
My question on the schedule is, what is to be the compensation payable? I can follow the occasions when compensation will be payable down to paragraph 4, which states:
Compensation in respect of the imposition of a prohibition or limitation on the taking of water from a source shall be made by the authority to any persons to whom the prohibition or limitation applies for damage sustained by reason of the prohibition or limitation.
Am I correct in understanding that to mean a prohibition not of use but of taking from some source such as a spring, river or whatever it may be?
To understand prohibition or limitation of use we have to turn to the explanatory note, which in page iii, paragraph 8, tells us:
Schedule 2 provides for compensation to be payable for all provisions under clause 1 except those which relate to restrictions on the use of water.
That is not patently clear from the schedule, unless one interprets paragraph 7(4) as giving that compensation. It states:
Where a claim is made during the continuance of an order, the Lands Tribunal may, if it thinks fit, award a sum representing the damage
in the three cases illustrated there. I understand that they do not include compensation for prohibition of use. One can get at that only by a negative—by saying that the schedule does not include it—and then turning to the explanatory note which confirms it.
If the right hon. Gentleman will confirm my interpretation of the schedule, it will be helpful to have it on the record. Some people are interpreting the schedule as providing compensation if there is a prohibition or limitation of use.

Mr. John Silkin: rose—

Mr. Lomas: Before my right hon. Friend replies, I should like to put one point to the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page). There is not another soul on the Opposition Benches who defends the point that he is making. This is a filibustering exercise. It is not using the time of the Committee in any useful way whatsoever.

Mr. Graham Page: I strongly resent that comment. There is no question of filibustering. These are important points arising on the Committee stage of a difficult Bill. There is no question of any filibustering on it. The answers that I have had from the Minister have been very much to the point, and it is useful to have them on the record.

Mr. John Silkin: Regarding Clause 2 orders, the provisions largely follow the pattern of the Water Act 1958, which makes no provision for compensation for damage sustained as a result of an Order under Section 2 of that Act. I assume that the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), in giving his interpretation, was following the interpretation of the 1958 Act. Of course, he is perfectly correct in everything he said.

Question put and agreed to.

Schedule 2,as amended, agreed to.

Schedule 3

TRANSITIONAL AND SAVING PROVISIONS

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: With the permission of the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Lomas), I beg to move Amendment No. 43, in page 14, line 5, leave out from 'effect' to end of line 13.
Schedule 3 deals with the transitional provisions relating to the Water Act 1958. That Act is repealed by Clause 5(7), which stated:
The Water Act 1958 (which is superseded by this Act) is hereby repealed except in its

application to Scotland subject, however, to the transitional and saving provisions contained in Schedule 3 to this Act.
The first four lines of Schedule 3 are common form:
The repeal by this Act of the Water Act 1958 in its application to England and Wales shall not affect the validity of an order under that Act which was in force immediately before the repeal took effect.
I have no objection to that whatever. It is common form. However, it then goes on with something that I do not recognise as being in common form when one is repealing an existing piece of legislation. It says that any Order under the 1958 Act
may be varied by a subsequent order made under and in accordance with that Act".
Therefore, it is keeping the 1958 Act in being for the purpose of varying Orders under that Act. Surely the right process would be to say that those Orders, until they are varied, remain valid, and then to apply any procedure for variation of the Orders under the present Bill.
Then sub-paragraph (b) says:
any thing done or omitted after the repeal took effect which would have constitued an offence under that Act"—
the 1958 Act—
if that Act had remained in force shall constitute an offence under that Act and be punishable accordingly.
Surely, if one has repealed an Act one does not go on making Orders under that Act and go on prosecuting under it. I should have thought that it was quite sufficient to leave the first four words of Schedule 3 in and to omit the two subparagraphs. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman can give me any precedent for them. I do not recognise them as having been used before. They will cause great confusion, certainly for the practitioner who has to look to see whether his clients are committing an offence under the 1958 Act, which has been repealed, or under this Bill when it becomes the 1976 Act and the proper Act in operation. I would have hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would make things much simpler by removing the two sub-paragraphs.

Mr. John Silkin: The right hon. gentleman has got it quite right, but in getting it quite right he has come to quite the wrong conclusion. The whole point about this is that there are a number of


Orders which are in effect at present under the 1958 Act. The whole reason why we are sitting here at two minutes past 11 o'clock, when all of us would much rather be at our homes and asleep in bed—with the exception of the right hon. Gentleman, who, as everyone knows, begins to wake up at this time of night—is that we are in an emergency.
If the right hon. Gentleman thinks about this for a moment, he will appreciate that the effect of a total repeal, without this saving transitional provision, would be that the Orders at present in effect would cease. The authorities would then have to wait until the Bill becomes law and would then have to go through all the statutory processes all over again. It was felt that for this bridging moment, the transitional period, it would be best to do something for which, I must admit, I do not think there is a precedent. However, once the Bill becomes law in the near future, after receiving, as I hope it will, Royal Assent, the effect of this saving provision will dilute and diminish until eventually it is no more.

Mr. Graham Page: All that the Minister has said is covered by the first four lines of the schedule. That much is in common. Orders remain in force. However, when one wants to vary them under the current legislation, one should not keep in being a repealed Act in order to vary them or in order to prosecute people under it. I do not know what will happen when the matter of prosecuting under a repealed statute by this provision comes before a court. I am trying to help the right hon. Gentleman in simplifying the Bill.

Mr. John Silkin: Even allowing for the original wording that the right hon. Gentleman would like to see remain, the Orders in question could not be varied, and this would be, or at least could be, quite wrong. The right hon. Gentleman must understand that we are dealing with something which will, we hope, take effect because the 1958 Act was not powerful enough. We are not moving into any other territory. It is purely in regard to an emergency. If the right hon. Gentleman will be a little patient, he will find as time passes that there are no more Orders under the 1958

Act that could worry him or the House in general.

The Chairman (Mr. Oscar Murton): The Question is, That the amendment be made. As many as are of that opinion say "Aye".

Mr. Graham Page: Aye.

The Chairman: To the contrary, "No". I think the Ayes—

Hon. Members: No.

The Chairman: The Question is—

Mr. Graham Page: On a point of order, Mr. Murton. I distinctly heard, when you first put the Question, "The Ayes have it". I do not know why you changed your mind and put it again.

The Chairman: Perhaps I might help the right hon. Gentleman. I did not use the magical words "The Ayes have it, the Ayes have it". We did not reach that point. In fact, the Noes have it.

Amendment negatived.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Bill reported, with amendments; as amended, considered.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time,put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading)and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENT AND COMMISSION DOCUMENT

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): With the permission of the House, I propose to put together the Questions on the two motions relating to Customs and Excise and Stamp Duty on Securities.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Insruments, &amp;c.).

CUSTOMS AND EXCISE

That the Anti-Dumping Duty (No. 2) Order 1976 (S.I., 1976, No. 1100), a copy of which was laid before this House on 15th July, be approved.—[Mr. Tinn.]

STAMP DUTY ON SECURITIES

That this House takes note of Commission Document No. R/923/76 relating to Stamp Duty on Securities.—[Mr. Tinn.]

Question agreed to.

INVALID VEHICLES AND MOBILITY ALLOWANCE

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Tinn.]

11.7 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Lomas: After the mundane arguments we have just heard from both sides of the House it is as well that we should refer to people and the problems with which they are faced.
During the last few months, Mr. Speaker and his Deputies have had a fairly hectic time, and this is the last evening Adjournment debate before the House rises for the Summer Recess. On behalf of hon. Members on both sides of the House, I hope that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and Mr. Speaker, have a very enjoyable recess. I should like to preface my remarks on the phasing out of the invalid tricycle by asking you to accept the sincere and grateful thanks of the whole House for the patience and tolerance you have shown during the Session. I am sure the House would like to place on record its thanks for the work of the attendants, police, catering staff and all the others who serve in the House of Commons for the benefit of Members of Parliament. They have done a first-rate job.
I raise the subject of the trike in general terms, but I have been greatly impressed by the arguments put forward by the Huddersfield and District Invalid Tricycle Club, particularly by Mr. Harold Newsome, the secretary and news editor, who is writing a history of the club, which celebrates its twenty-first birthday in October this year, an event that I hope will be crowned by a visit from the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security with responsibility for the disabled. I appreciate the tremendous amount of work that my hon. Friend has done, and I know how much my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State cares for the handicapped people in our

society and how much he has done for them. They are both extremely humane, understanding Ministers.
Although I welcome both the introduction and the extension of the mobility allowance. I regret my right hon. Friend's decision at the same time, announced in a statement on Friday 23rd July, that the trike should be phased out over the next five years. He said:
Existing trike holders will, of course, be able to keep their vehicles until they wear out and will also be able to have them replaced when they wear out for as long as spare parts and replacements are still available.
How long does my hon. Friend expect the spare parts and replacements to be available? On the same day, my right hon. Friend said:
The report of the Department of the Environment on the subject of repairs and the efficacy of these vehicles discloses disturbing information.
He added—and this is crucial:
But it is important to recognise that many trike drivers have driven their vehicles for years and with that experience are extremely safe drivers. Evidence shows that most of the safety problems occur in respect of those who are fairly new to the driving of such vehicles and that is an important matter to recognise."—[Official Report, 23rd July 1976; Vol. 915, cc 2230–2233.]
So said the Minister, but I would argue that that is not an argument for phrasing out the trike. It is an argument for more and better repair facilities, and it is an argument for better and more driving instruction, but it is not—and never will be—an argument for depriving people of their means of transport
My right hon. Friend in his statement of 23rd July made much of the fact that since the mobility allowance was introduced more applicants had opted for the cash and not for the trike. With great respect, my right hon. Friend confused the issue. It might well be true, but he must appreciate that he is dealing in the main with two different classes of people—those who have always had the trike, including many who would he unable to travel to work without one and would have their livelihood taken away from them if they did not have a trike—and those who want the mobility allowance —which is not much, at £5 a week, less tax—becaunse it is a help as a means of getting out of their homes.
I draw my hon. Friend's attention to Early-Day Motions No. 554, which has


all-party sponsorship, and No. 563, sponsored mainly by Labour Members. There is a considerable body of Members who feel that the Minister has gone wrong in these matters. Both motions, in essence, say the same thing: that hon. Members are concerned about the proposal to phase out the trike and argue that the Government should continue the supply of cars to the physically handicapped and guarantee the replacement of the trike whenever necessary.
Much has been made in the various reports on the subject of the accident rate of trike owners, which is much higher than that of the normal car user. I accept that, but I have spoken to many drivers of invalid trikes, and when I have asked them what they want they have said "We want our trike, but obviously we should prefer a converted car if that were possible, primarily for the sake of companionship".
I am repeatedly told—I am sure that my hon. Friend takes this on board—that it is essential to impress upon the drivers of invalid trikes two things, namely, the limitations of the vehicle and its capability, just as one must recognise the difference between driving a Rolls-Royce and a Mini. I believe that if people accept this point of view the invalid tricycle is as safe as any other vehicle.
On 29th August 1975 my hon. Friend sent me a letter in reply to one that I had forwarded to him from the Huddersfield and District Invalid Tricycle Club. He enclosed a number of tables on three-wheeler accidents in the period 1st October 1973 to 30th September 1974, and said:
The total number of injury accidents in three-wheelers in 1974, 419, related to the nearly 20,000 such vehicles on issue represents less than one injury accident to every 50 years of driving; and even then most injuries are of a very minor nature.
According to the report which my hon. Friend sent me, the incidence was just over 2 per cent.
In an earlier letter, dated 14th July 1975, my hon. Friend said:
We have concluded that the three-wheeler should be kept for those who want it and for those who cannot manage anything else.
What has caused him to change his mind? There has been criticism of the

trike from responsible persons, such as Baroness Sharp and the Ombudsman. I do not accept those criticisms. I ask my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend to find out not from the various associations but from the owners of the trikes whether they want to give them up. If they sent a circular to the 20,000 people who own the trikes, the answer would be "No, we don't". Many people would opt for a converted car if they could, but I suggest to my hon. Friend, for whom I have tremendous affection, that he gets down to the grass roots and asks the individual drivers whether they want to keep the trikes.
Obviously I welcome the introduction and extension of the mobility allowance. We are proud that it has come from a Labour Government, and it is a good allowance. But no one can kid me that £5 a week, less tax, will buy a car. Certainly it will not buy a car and at the same time meet the costs of running and repairs. It is a very useful addition to the Welfare State, but it is no reason for phasing out the trike.
In a report published inThe Guardian on 15th October 1975, written by Peter Hildrew—who, incidentally, is the Labour candidate for Colne Valley and who will be in this House after the next election—the Minister of Transport was reported as saying that there was no case for banning invalid tricycles on safety grounds and that, although he was concerned that the rates of death and serious injuries for invalid tricycles was four times higher than that for ordinary cars, the rate for motor cycles was even worse. Mr. Hildrew went on to ask:
Are we then to conclude that the two wheeler might be taken off the road?
I hope that my hon. Friend will comment on these points and perhaps say something about the introduction of a specialised vehicle, which might be brought in at the end of the phasing out of the trike.
I next refer my hon. Friend to the article that appeared in the Observer last Sunday, 1st August, by Adam Raphael. The first paragraph reads:
The cruellest and most hidden saving of the Government's public expenditure cuts this month was made at the expense of disabled drivers. It will diminish the quality of their lives and make many of them suffer real hardship.


I am quite certain that my hon. Friend does not want to go down in history in that light. I ask him to give an undertaking to consider the matter again, allow people to opt for trikes, or preferably converted cars, and refuse to let the thousands of disabled people in the country be deprived of their right to mobility for work or pleasure. If he will do that, he will go down in history as one of the greatest Ministers for the disabled that any Government have ever seen.
I hope that my hon. Friend will bear in mind the limbless man who merely wants to go 100 yards from his house to a park, so that he can sit and enjoy the pleasures of the park. He cannot do that on £5 a week. He cannot do it without a trike. I beg my hon. Friend to think again and to make a more positive response to the House.

11.24 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Alfred Morris): I am glad to endorse the generous and kindly gesture with which my hon. Friend began his important speech. He is very widely respected on both sides of the House for his genuine concern for disabled people, and it is wholly characteristic of him, so near to the end of a most hectic and tumultuous period of parliamentary activity, that he should still be here pursuing the interests of his constituents in special need.
My hon. Friend's speech was entirely sincere, and I congratulate him on his choice of subject. It is most helpful to me to have this opportunity to enlarge upon what has been said already about the decisions that we have taken and to allay some of the fears that have been aroused.
A great deal of anxiety has been caused by reports that the invalid tricycle was about to disappear almost forthwith. I can assure the House that this is not so. We are not withdrawing tricycles now in service from those who want to keep them. We expect to keep the tricycle fleet going for at least five years and possibly a good deal longer. As the phasing out of the trike proceeds, we have not ruled out the possibility of a residual need for specialised invalid vehicles.
My hon. Friend referred to £5 a week as the amount of the mobility allowance. I emphasise that it is our intention not merely to increase the allowance but to uprate its value.
Anyone who is registered as disabled with the Employment Services Agency, who is unable to use public transport and needs a car or taxi to get to work, may be eligible for financial help from the Agency. He can apply for this if he no longer has a vehicle. Any disabled person who was given a trike or private car allowance under the old vehicles scheme for the particular purpose of getting to work will not in future lose his benefit if he loses his job. From now on he can keep his trike as long as supplies are available. Moreover, when we have brought in the necessary legislation, he will be able to switch to mobility allowance even if he is not eligible under the present rules.
We shall be building up a stockpile of the spare parts most needed to keep the residual fleet going as long as possible. It is this which will enable us to ensure that, for the vast majority of those who want to keep their trikes, we are able to go on providing and maintaining them for at least five years and possibly a good deal longer. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept this as the fullest answer we can give to the first of the questions he has raised.

Mr. Lomas: The mobility allowance cannot be a replacement for a tricycle. The allowance of £5 a week cannot compensate for a tricycle. My hon. Friend knows that.

Mr. Morris: My hon. Friend will know that I have written at some length on this subject. He will be aware, with his interest in matters affecting disabled people, of the efforts that the Central Council for the Disabled has been making to devise a scheme which, among other things, would help disabled people to obtain cars at discount rates.
The invalid tricycle lasts, on average, between seven and eight years. I have emphasised that it is our intention to increase the rate of the mobility allowance.

Mr. Lomas: From what to what?

Mr. Morris: Even at its current rate it would produce about £2,000 over the


average lifetime of an invalid tricycle. My hon. Friend would argue, with many disabled people, that this points to the need for commutation. The Central Council for the Disabled has been looking at the possibility of such a scheme. I am in close contact with the central council, which has had contacts with the motor manufacturers. The council hopes that it will be possible at least to devise a scheme which, among other benefits, would enable the disabled person to use his mobility allowance to obtain a car at discount rates. This evening I cannot go any further on what is an important point. However, I can assure my hon. Friend that I shall keep in the closest contact with all the agencies that are taking an interest.
My hon. Friend asked if I would keep as close as possible to the grass roots. My hon. Friend will know that I keep very close to the grass roots. I intended to end my speech by saying that I hoped to be with the grass roots at their best when I visited him and his constituents in a town that I hold in the highest regard. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Harrison) will know from a recent visit that I paid to his constituency, the grass roots in Wakefield are also very attractive horticulturally.
It was fairly clear from the reception given to my right hon. Friend's statement on 23rd July that there was support on both sides of the House both for our decision that the trike must be phased out and for the basic principles of our policy. That central principle is that, in the interests of equity and flexibility, cash and not hardware should be the main mobility benefit for drivers and non-drivers alike.
My hon. Friend referred to the problem of a disabled driver in his constituency. He will appreciate that many disabled people find it difficult, without the most imaginative forms of help, to get on the pavement, let alone the road, in order to drive a vehicle.
Only two years ago, when our policy was formulated, there was no reason to believe that the trike would not continue to be available for issue as long as could be seen ahead. But now there is a decisive new factor, to which my right

hon. Friend referred in his statement of 23rd July. My hon. Friend suggested that I was saying something quite different from what was previously said about the invalid tricycle and its future. I am emphasising now what my right hon. Friend emphasised.
The progress of international standards governing the design of road vehicles makes it most probable that before long, the limits of the present design of the tricycle will have been reached. So in the longer term it cannot form part of our mobility help for disabled people.
In questioning whether we really had to take this decision my hon. Friend has referred to the accident risk and the fact that the risk is greatest for drivers who are new to the trike. I agree with him that many trike drivers, who drive carefully within the limitations of their vehicles, have driven safely for many years. I have no doubt that in Huddersfield my hon. Friend will introduce me to many trike drivers who, in their vehicles, have covered tens of thousands of miles quite safely.
But, as I have said in the House on other occasions, we have to recognise that the invalid tricycle cannot be made as stable as a modern four-wheeled car. We took this and all other factors into account in reaching the decision to phase out the tricycle. But I must emphasise that no one is banning the trike. Any question of banning a particular kind of vehicle from use on the roads would be for my hon. Friend the Minister for Transport, whose views were quoted earlier in the debate. My hon. Friend the Minister for Transport expressed these views to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and a report by Mr. Peter Hildrew appeared inThe Guardian summarising my hon. Friend's speech.
The legislation that my right hon. Friend has undertaken to introduce will ensure for all 47,000 of the pre-1976 beneficiaries a right to switch to mobility allowance when a trike or private car allowance is given up. For those who hold on to their trikes for as long as they can, it will be possible to switch to mobility allowance when the trike eventually wears out. Mobility allowance payable under this new legislation will not be subject to any upper age limit.
This promised legislation is of real importance for disabled drivers, because something like one-half of the people who have a reserved right to a vehicle or private car allowance under the old scheme are at present ineligible to switch to mobility allowance, either by reason of the age bar or because eligibility under the old scheme rested on the controversial employment criterion of Category 3.
I have been asked many times, in the last week or two, about the development of an alternative specialised vehicle for existing trike drivers who might not be able to meet their mobility needs in any other way when trikes are no longer available. My hon. Friend suggested that there will be trike drivers who will feel themselves unable to drive any other vehicle. I cannot go further than to repeat what my right hon. Friend said on 23rd July:
When that time approaches we shall assess the extent of the need for specialised vehicles for the remaining vehicle scheme beneficiaries and see which alternative vehicles, are electrically powered wheelchairs, are available on the home and world markets.—[Official Report, 23rd July 1976; Vol. 915, c. 2237.]
In the meantime, we are watching the progress of the change-over to mobility allowance as increasing numbers of trike holders have the option to switch. We shall study how people are actually spending their mobility allowance. We shall

see to what extent people with particular kinds of disabilities tend to switch to the allowance or choose to keep their trikes. We shall take full account of the comments of disabled people and their organisations and will share with them what we learn in the studies we make. Above all, we shall consider the continuing needs of the people concerned. We shall see what choices they make, and will not rush into particular technical developments, which could so easily prove to be wasteful, and expensive attempts to solve the wrong problems and divert resources from better lines of advance. At the same time, we shall bear in mind that for very many severely disabled people driving is not within the range of practical possibilities at all.
I know that the mobility allowance, at the current rate of £5 a week, is not in itself enough to buy and run a new car. It is a contribution to the mobility costs of disabled people. As in every other field, there is a limit to the money available for all the improvements I have been seeking—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKERadjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-three minutes to Twelve o'clock.